South Koreans eyeing cassava, oil palm investments in Davao

SOUTH Korean investors will arrive in Davao City on June 8 to explore the possibil- ity of investing on oil palm and cassava in Davao Region.

This was announced by City Agriculturist Office (CAO) chief Valente Turtur, saying that there will be talks be- tween the South Koreans, officials from his office and from Department of Agriculture (DA) 11 slated next week to discuss the matter.

“Nagtan-aw sila sa tibuok Region 11 (They are looking at the entire Region 11),” Turtur said, pertaining to the possible foreign investments on the high-value crops.

Also, Turtur added that they will be proposing other crops as another option for the South Koreans, saying there’s still no mass production of oil palm in the region. In fact, DA invited his office for a focussed group discussion last Tuesday.

Oil palm, he said, needs a wider space for farming--at least 9,000 hectares--in order to recoup expenditures for the post-harvest facilities, especially for the oil mill.

“Ginatan-aw pud nga dili na siya small holder crop nga commodity. Kailangan og plantation (We’re also con- sidering that oil palm is not just a small holder commodity, it needs a plantation),” he added.

Another important consideration on oil palm is its being a monocrop type, meaning it cannot be mixed up with other crops, and thus discourages fallback whenever a problem arises.

Turtur said putting up an oil palm plantation is not very fitting if operated by small-scale farmers, not unless if cooperative farmers’ organizations will be formed to serve that purpose.

“What we are advocating here is agro-forestry species like rubber, coffee, cacao, and banana since there are small holder crops,” he said, adding that these are the type of crops which be intercropped with another plant.

In terms of cassava, he added there are sprawling patches of cassava plantations all throughout the city, the biggest being in the Tamugan, Marilog District.

“Sa cassava, naay 400 hectares tibuok Davao City (For cassava, we have 400 hectares in Davao City),” Turtur said, adding that the farm gate price of such a crop ranges from P1.50 to P3 a kilo.

Most of these farmers supply San Miguel Corporation for the company’s feed production. They also supply the local markets in Bankerohan and Toril areas.

“That’s why there’s a tractor, it’s purpose is for cassava and corn. We have so much production for feeds and for our foods. They (investors) wanted to know how much of it we can produce,” he added.

The official cannot determine what specifically their investments will be, although he said they may want to put in post-harvest facilities as an addition to the existing ones.

Currently, the support given by the CAO and DA to farmers are machineries like chipper and granulator for cassava.