Japan rescues the Philippine mango

THE sun rises for the lowly Philippine mango.

Just a few days after the Department of Agriculture (DA) announced t he countr y had a surplus of t wo million kg of mangoes from the recent har vest, a Japanese fruits importer said it was buying 100,000kg of t he tropica l fruit from t he Philippines t his season.

Diamond Star Corporation, which has been operating in the countr y since 1987, said it was look ing to buy a huge volume of Carabao mangoes in t he countr y last week – in time for t he launching of DA’s mango marketing programme on Monday.

“The Japanese company has been importing papayas, pineapple, mango, bananas and even turnips from the Philippines . . . It signified the intent to buy mangoes through Philippine agriculture attache to Japan Dr Samuel Animas [last week],” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol said on his Facebook page.

“The DA will arrange a meeting bet ween the Japanese importers and the mango farmers of Luzon,” he added.

The deal a lso came five days after President Duterte went to Japan to sea l trade agreements. The countr y expects to get nearly 300 billion pesos ($ 5.78 billion) worth of investments from t he v isit.

Local mango growers have complained of low prices since t he onset of har vest – dropping bet ween 14 and 16 pesos per kg. Farmer leaders said these rates were lower than their production cost.

Due to the unanticipated oversupply, t he DA arranged a series of selling events for Philippine mangoes dubbed as “Metro Mango”, the first of which would be held in the Bureau of Plant Industr y office in Manila.

DA director for agribusiness and marketing Bernadette San Juan said bulk of the produce would be coming from Ilocos, Zambales and Nueva Ecija. Select farmers from Mindanao and Eastern and Central Visayas were expected to join.