Agribusiness Plantations

Changing Mindanao’s
Landscape

Lia Jasmin M. Esquillo / IDIS / January 2011

 Outline
•! Plantations Issues
•! Initiatives
•! Results
•! Challenges
•! Plantations are vast tracts of land devoted to
one crop – monocultures or monocrop farms.
•! Export-oriented -- targeting foreign market
•! Have been in Mindanao for decades
•! Late ‘90s to 2000, plantations started to
expand rapidly – especially those devoted to
pineapples and cavendish banana
•! Why? Because of growing international
demand and approach has become a
national agenda (MTPDP)
•! Agribusiness plantations – run by large local
and foreign corporations
 Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters
Association
•! AMS Group of Companies, Inc (Sorianos of Mindanao)
•! Sumifru Philippines (Japanese MNC)
•! ANFLO Group of Companies (Floirendos)
•! Alip River Development and Export Corporation
•! Del Monte Fresh Produce Philippines (MNC)
•! La Frutera Incorporated (MNC)
•! Lapanday Foods Corporation (Lorenzos)
•! Hijo Resources Corporation
•! Diamond Farms Inc
•! Dizon Group of Companies (Dizons)
•! Marsman-Drysdale Group of Companies (MNC)
•! Nader and Ebrahim Hassan Philippines
•! Saranggani Agricultural Company Inc (Domiguez)
•! Nova Vista Management and Development Corporation
•! Dole Stanfilco (MNC)
•! Tristar Group of Banana Companies (Ayalas of Davao)
 Croplife – pesticide
companies
•! BASF
•! Bayer Cropscience
•! Dow Agrosciences
•! Dupont
•! FMC
•! Monsanto
•! Syngenta
•! Sumitomo
Common occurrence. Children on the way to school is sprayed by
pesticides.
Subasta, Davao City. June 2006. Photo by Dags Magaway
Aerial
spraying is
just the tip
of the The bigger problem
iceberg . . . is corporate-led
plantation style
agricultural system
of monocropping
Issues and Concerns

•! Environmental costs
–!Heavy pesticide use threatens
drinking water sources
–!Soil degradation
–!Soil erosion and sedimentation of
water
–!Flashfloods
–!Loss of biodiversity
–!Climate change
Issues and Concerns

•! Health and food safety costs

–!Dr. Quijano study; DOH study
–!Food contamination – pesticide
found in fish sample in Tugbok
•! Food security costs
–!Massive conversion of actual and
potential food production areas
especially rice, corn, vegetable
lands
 Reduction of Rice Lands in
Region XI
•! Conversion of rice lands to Cavendish bananas. For the Davao Region, data
from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics show rice farms shrinking by 10,900
hectares in 2 years from 108,374 hectares in 2007. Banana plantations on
the other hand ballooned to over 10,200 has over the same period to 78,700
surging by 14%. Rice farm areas all over the region shrunk with the following
figures:

Area Reduction of Rice Lands

Davao City 37%

Davao del Norte 9% or 2,800 hectares converted to

banana plantations
Davao del Sur 8% or 2,300 hectares
Davao Oriental 8%

Compostela Valley 8%

BAS as cited by Aurelio A. Pena, p5in Sunstar Davao article 27 June 2008,
Issues and Concerns

•! Circumvents agrarian reform

–!Reversal of land access & control
under agrarian reform
–!Enhances & facilitates corporate
control over the country’s
agricultural and food production
systems
•! Labor issues
–!Labor contracting only widely
practiced in plantation areas
–!Questionable contracts
Issues and Concerns

•! Policy issues
–!DENR Administrative Order
2003-30: fast tracking process of
ECC issuance; plantations less than
100 hectares not required to secure
ECCs
–!PGMA EO 807 – lifting limit to areas
planted to banana plantations
Banana plantation in Pesticide -laced
cellophanes littered in Chemical spill from
18% steep slopes
plantations near Saro River plantation trucks

NO buffer zones, drainage

canals= FLASHFLOODS
Aerial spraying that exposes more
people and environment to Community
pesticide drift
health affected

Pineapple plantation in
No buffer zone between Loss of biodiversity upland areas of
plantations and houses watersheds: 500 m ASL
IDIS and FPE
•! 2005 Action Grant -- Earth Day
Celebrations 2005: A Call for Watershed
Protection and Corporate Social
Responsibility
•! 2006-2007 Action Research -- Pesticide
Monitoring in Key Watersheds in Davao
City
•! 2010-2011 Endefense -- Environmental
Defense of Davao City’s Upland
Watersheds and Local Communities
Against Agribusiness Plantation Practices
 Earth Day Celebrations 2005:
A Call for Watershed Protection
and Corporate Social
Responsibility

•! Mindanao-wide Conference on
Agribusiness Plantations – Issues and
Alternatives
•! Earth Day Concert
•! Photo Exhibit at SM
 Station 7
Junction of Wines-Gumalang Creek

Station 10
Mio Creek Station 8
Groundwater
Tamobobong pur. Cawayan
Spring, Wines
Groundwater
Recharge Zone Extraction Zone
Station 3
Talomo River,
Station 5
Tamayong
Subasta Creek
Station 9,
Panigan River,
Carmen Station 6
Tributary to
Wangan Creek

Station 1 Station 2
Sitio Sicao,
Tamayong (control purok 4, Sping, Tamayong
station) Station 4
Saro Spring,
Manuel Guianga

Legend:
Panigan-Tamugan Watershed
Talomo Watershed
Lipadas Watershed
Panigan-Tamugan and Talomo-Lipadas Rivers
Banana Plantations
Pineapple Plantations
Davao City Water District Drilling Wells
 Pesticide Monitoring in Key
Watersheds in Davao City
•! 13 pesticides found – chlorpyrifos, diazinon,
fenitrothion, phenthoate, heptachlor,
mancozeb, paraquat, endrin, aldrin, dieldrin,
4,4 DDT, endosulfan, gamma chlordane
•! 7 of the 13 pesticides detected are banned
pesticides -- 4,4 DDT, endosulfan, endrin,
dieldrin, aldrin, heptachlor and gamma
chlordane
•! 2 of the most commonly detected pesticides
in water -- chlorpyrifos and diazinon -- were
detected at levels higher than the US-EPA
and Canadian regulatory limit for freshwater.
Pesticide Monitoring in Key
Watersheds in Davao City

2010 Updates

•! Draft DENR AO on standards of

pesticides in water
•! Ateneo de Davao has new state of the
art laboratory on pesticides
 Endefense Program

1.! Enhance capacities of communities to

address environmental defense
issues in the upland watersheds
2.! Pursue legal cases to protect upland
watershed biodiversity and
communities
IDIS with other Partners

•! Policy Advocacy and Lobby

•! Banning of aerial spraying – LGU, RTC,
CA, SC, national campaign
•! Promoting alternative – organic,
diversified farming
•! Organic Agriculture laws at local and
national levels
Results
•! Contributed to exposing at the local and
national levels the ills of agribusiness
intensification and the bad corporate social
responsibility practices of plantation
companies using the aerial spraying issue as a
handle;
•! Helped highlight organic or ecological
agriculture as the concrete and sustainable
alternative to agribusiness intensification;
•! Created pressure for national government to
act on the agri-business issues;
•! Helped strengthen participatory policy
formulation with the involvement of civil society
groups and marginalized sectors in policy
development;
Challenges
•! Strengthen affected communities --
short term needs vs long term
development
•! Provide alternative sustainable
livelihoods to communities
•! Widen network of CSOs engaging
plantation issues
Daghang
Salamat!