| Crop diversification using bananas to enhance livelihood and income of small-scale tobacco growers: a livelihood model for strengthening farmers’ organizations |
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| Start date |
May 2008 |
| End date |
April 2011 |
| Total grant |
$30,000 |
| Donor |
Philippines Government |
| Location |
Ilocos provinces in northern Luzon |
| Goal |
The study aims to maximize farm productivity of small-scale tobacco growers, thereby enhancing livelihood and increasing income through crop diversification. It integrates the cultivation of banana, a high-value cash crop, to the existing tobacco-based farming systems. |
| Brief description |
The project evaluates the profitability of crop diversification for small-scale tobacco growers, by adding bananas alongside their major crop, tobacco. The bananas will be sold as table bananas or processed into marketable value-added products (e.g. banana chips). The project also evaluates, under farmers-fields conditions, the performance and profitability of the improved hybrids FHIA-21 and FHIA-17 and compares these introduced varieties to the local variety Cardaba as raw materials for banana chips. FHIA-17 and FHIA-21 were introduced in the Philippines through the International Musa Testing Programme of Bioversity International, and are being distributed through the Institute of Plant Breeding, the designated National Repository, Multiplication and Distribution Center in the Philippines.
This project is being implemented in northern Luzon by the National Tobacco Administration (NTA), a government bureau of the Department of Agriculture. This is a participatory project, which involves farmers, researchers, technicians, and administrators in its design and implementation. NTA administers to tens of thousands of tobacco farmers, organized in farmers’ organizations based in villages. NTA also manages a banana-chip processing plant, which needs large supplies of raw materials. These raw materials are expected to be sourced from the farmers through a “contract growing” scheme. The NTA in turn provides material inputs through a “cost recovery” arrangement. NTA will also buy the farmers’ produce for the processing plant, as well as market these products, in both local and export markets.
Bioversity and its national partners (IPB and the Ilocos Sur Polytechnic State College) will assist in the provision of technical assistance through training, documentation and evaluation of the profitability and income of farmers, field variety evaluation, and analyses.
The output of this study is seen as a model for further application and upscaling in similar, and other, conditions. |
| Partners |
• National Tobacco Authority - PGMA Multi-line Food Processing Plant
• Institute of Plant Breeding
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| Coordination |
Dr. Agustin Molina, Bioversity International CfL-AP /
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