The possible opening of the Australian market to home-grown bananas would only have a slight effect on the country’s overall export of the fruit as Canberra remains a “small” market for the local produce, the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA) said.
“[It would have] very minimal effect [on our exports],” PBGEA Executive Director Stephen A. Antig told the BusinessMirror in an interview.
“Australia is a small market considering they have banana plantations also and export it, too,” Antig added.
Nonetheless, Antig said, the Philippines’s competitive advantage is that locally produced bananas are cheaper than those grown in Australia.
Last year, the Philippines and Australia held another round of agricultural talks in Canberra, which focused comprehensively on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) concerns of Canberra over Manila’s bananas.
Following the results of the meeting, Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel T. Cayanan expressed optimism on that homegrown banana fruits would finally enter the Australian market this year.
Cayanan said the Philippines explained extensively to Australia the current SPS measures undertaken by local banana growers and exporters to address various diseases during the fourth Australia-Philippines Agriculture forum held on November 28 in Canberra.
Cayanan pointed out that the Philippines currently employ superior banana technologies to address SPS problems compared to Australia.
Among these technologies, according to Cayanan, banana growers eradicate the infestation and spread of black sigatoka disease through plant tissues.
“Their primarily concern is the entry of sigatoka disease, and they are saying that the remedial measures is having five leaves, eight leaves,” he told the BusinessMirror in an interview in December.
“But we are doing the roots. If we see something wrong with the roots, we address it immediately and the plant will not grow anymore,” he added.
The Philippines, through the Bureau of the Plant Industry (BPI) and the PBGEA, would submit the technical documents covering the comprehensive SPS measures undertaken by the country to Australia within the month, according to Cayanan.
Cayanan mentioned that the meeting has set a six-month time frame—which would be from January to June—for Australia to evaluate the documents on whether it would pass their SPS and quarantine standards.
Cayanan said they are optimistic that the Philippines would now overcome the SPS concerns set by Australia for the entry of locally grown banana fruits, and even sees the conclusion of Australia’s evaluation earlier than June next year.
“I think we were able to inculcate and to impress on them that we are doing things right,” he said.
“We didn’t just accelerate the talks but we have made it time- bounded, technology and science-based. The negotiations were very good and we are very very happy on how the negotiations went,” he added.
Manila is set to host the fifth Philippine-Australia agriculture forum in 2020.
The Philippines reclaimed its position as the second-largest exporter of bananas in the world last year on the back of higher supplies due to better planting conditions.
However, PBGEA urged the government to provide more support to local growers to maintain the stature as competition with South American producers tightens.
In its preliminary market review report, the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that Philippine banana exports last year expanded by 77.34 percent to an all-time high of 2.95 million metric tons, from a recorded volume of 1.663 MMT in 2017.
“Banana production in the Philippines had been affected by a series of adverse conditions between 2015 and 2017, in response to which significant investments were made in area expansion, new technologies and improved inputs,” FAO said in the report published recently.
“Thanks to the strong performance in 2018, the Philippines regained its place as second-largest supplier of bananas behind Ecuador, at a volume share of 16 percent of global shipments,” it added.
Image credits: Anindito Mukherjee/Bloomberg
