SEN. Cynthia Villar vowed to support farmers and help them overcome challenges that prevent them from producing more quality mangoes.
As presiding chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, Villar is keen to boost the local mango industry known to produce the “best-tasting mangoes” in the world.
Addressing members of the AANI Mango Industry Association Inc. during two-day 19th National Mango Festival over the weekend, Villar guaranteed she will push for its development and promotion.
The festival with the theme, “Creating a Growth Strategies for the Mango Industry,” aims to promote the productivity, marketability and the viability of the Philippines’s national fruit.
Villar said that aside from the challenges being faced by the industry, she noted that the mango industry, composed of small farmers are not in organized plantation farms like the banana and pineapple industries.
The Philippines ranks 10th in mango production in the world. The senator added that “our mango variety ‘Carabao,’ known in the international market as ‘Manila Super Mango’ is acclaimed as one of the best varieties globally.”
“The industry is faced with declining yield and quality attributed to pests and diseases, poor nutrient and water management, low adoption of improved technologies, and high postharvest losses.”
The senator related that other industry problems include difficulty in farm operations, and high cost of production due to inefficient pesticide application.
“It is important that mango owners have a good grasp of orchard management to produce good fruits with proper pruning, fertilizer and sprayed, to avoid pests and diseases,” she said.
“Now I heard that the biggest problem is the management of mango twig borer [MTB] and cecid fly or ‘kurikong,’ two of the most serious insect pests of mango.”
By adopting Good Agricultural Practices, she said farmers can produce higher yields of good quality fruits at a lower cost.
The senator remains optimistic that with the meeting of mango practitioners and the support of government through the High Value Crops Development Program of the Department of Agriculture, she believes “the gathering of stakeholders in the mango industry will produce very good and workable solutions to their problems.”
Villar said mango is important in the Philippines “because it is the second largest most used fruit [28.2 percent] after banana [29.4 percent] in the world.”
Image credits: Contributed photo