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Food Production at a Local Scale

Banana Production in the Philippines

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF LAPANDAY

The steps in establishing banana production at  Lapanday were as follows.

• land preparation, including leveling and drainage
• planting rhizomes obtained from Del Monte
• the growing-phase as bunches of fruit develop and set -- this stage was highly labour-intensive requiring irrigation, very large applications of fertiliser and chemical sprays, and protection of fruit against insects and other damage
• harvesting and packing, another stage requiring lots of labour.

Lapanday soon achieved the highest yields in the Philippines and initially made high profits for the family, helped by the government who charged them no income tax from 1970 to 1974 under an export incentive scheme. In 1980, the family paid 250,000 pesos (about $37,000 Australian) annual rent but made over 3,250,000 pesos ($487,000) annual net profit. Total production costs were about 54,000 pesos per hectare with labourers wages forming 22 per cent and fertilisers, pesticides and disease control another 26 per cent.

Field workers on the plantation specialised in a particular operation -- for example, leaf pruning, spraying, maintaining drainage ditches -- over a designated area and were paid by the task. Wages thus varied according to skills required, the size of the area being worked and stage in the growing cycle. In 1980, average wages on the plantation were 20 pesos ($3 Australian) for an eight-hour day, although those harvesting and packing would receive 24 pesos per day. Packers were paid a fixed rate per case. Because of the urgency in moving packed fruit quickly to the ships, these teams would work ten-hour days .

Other costs included materials used in planting and growing, irrigation costs, packing materials and wharf charges at the port. Del Monte shipped 85 per cent of  Lapanday's output to Japan and the remainder of the bananas to countries of the Middle East.