BAR boosts jackfruit production

Jackfruit is considered by the Department of Agriculture (DA) as one of the high-value crops and is one of the priority commodities of Eastern Visayas to be commercialized.

The community-based participatory action research (CPAR) in Leyte implemented a project that seeks to boost production of jackfruit.

“We provided them with appropriate technologies on integrated nutrient management, pest management, and pruning strategies,” said Alicia Bulawan, co-leader of the CPAR.

Aside from production management, the project also provided trainings for home-based processing of jackfruit products.

“We have also introduced processing jackfruit into pastillas, tart, jam, and jelly to women from the same association. Most of them are the farmers’ wives,” Bulawan said.

CPAR, one of the banner programs of BAR, deals with improved technologies for the farming and fishing communities. Through the years, it has helped in improving the lives of our farmer cooperators and adoptors.

BAR has since then continually supports research and development (R&D) initiatives on jackfruit. One of these projects is the collaboration project of BAR and VSU that aimed to produce chitin and chitosan from chitin-containing crustacean exoskeleton wastes.

The University of the Philippines-Los Baños is also embarking on a project that aims to improve the characterization, conservation and utilization of jackfruit and its related endemic species through the creation of quick, cost-effective and reliable identification, monitoring and characterization scheme using DNA barcodes, georeferenced maps and characterization profiles.

“In a status report of jackfruit improvement in the Asia-Pacific Region by Sidhu, the importance of molecular markers was cited as one of the future prospects and strategy for jackfruit production and utilization, indicating its usefulness in popularizing this species as a commercial crop, for identification and for breeding purposes,” said project leader Teresita Borromeo.