BAR TODAY || Official Quarterly Publication of the Bureau of Agricultural Research

PhilFruits: The vision to world class fruits
by Likha C. Cuevas

April-June 2002
Volume 4 No. 2

In the next few years, we can make our durian candies and dried mangoes as regular items in grocery shelves all over the world. Our bananas, pineapples, and avocados and other processed fruits will have longer shelf life and quality that is best in the world. Our small-scale farmers' produce will have access to the world market, together with that of the commercial fruit growers.

This is how the Department of Agriculture (DA) sees the future for this industry. The Philippine Tropical Fruits Research Institute (PhilFruits), a semi autonomous unit under the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), will be the instrument to this vision. DA sees PhilFruits as an institution that will promote agro-industrialization in rural communities by modernizing small to medium-scale farms through provision of information, technologies, and support services in accordance with global standards. To help PhilFruits on its feet, the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) in 2000 provided P10 million seed money to BPI as start-up fund to establish the PhilFruits office. In 2001, P5 million was given to the DA Regional Field Unit 11 (as support) and another P5M was given to PhilFruits for its development.

The fruit industry plays a big part in our economy. The agriculture and fisheries sector accounted for almost 20% of the country's total GNP. The average production value of crops was P230.81 billion and 19.9% (P45.9 billion) of it was contributed by the fruits industry. Statistics shows that in 1998, it generated US$40 million in export earnings. The DA also estimates that at least 10 million people are employed by the mango, banana, papaya, pineapple, and cashew industries. There is still a lot of potential that can be tapped for these Philippine fruits.

Many government agencies have implemented programs to solve the concerns of the industry --- from access to agricultural resources and services to market information. However, the agriculture sector is in need of an institution to orchestrate all on-going R&D efforts on fruits across the country. Even though BPI has various divisions and experiment stations that have several functions and experiences in dealing with various commodities, they have difficulty in generating more research results due to inadequate funds and weak manpower capability. Fruit R&D networks in the 15 regions need better coordination and more financial and infrastructure support to meet future demands of the fruit industry. Because of this, the BPI Davao National Crop Research and Development Center (NCRDC) was elevated to PhilFruits, under the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act and Executive Order 162, to lead, guide, fund, and undertake RDE activities, generate effective technologies beneficial to farmers.

Plans for laboratory construction for biotechnology, soils, plant physiology, germplasm, seed processing plant and storage, and database/biometrics/statistics are underway. Improvement and expansion of the existing laboratories for crop protection and seed and seedling production are also needed. These are essential for PhilFruits to ensure global competitiveness of fruits in the country.

These initial activities would pave way for PhilFruits' operation in establishing and maintaining Philippine fruit germplasm and seed production; pest surveillance and early warning system; technology generation; and technology promotion. The institution is viewed as an R&D network composed of central experiment station in PhilFruits main office as the nucleus, with commodity-specific and strategically located key research centers in different parts of the country.

With a modernized R&D institution where scientists, researchers, and extension workers convene, the dream of having Philippine fruits around the world seems not far-fetched.