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NEWS & Updates
Effective natural organic alternative to pesticide now in use in Davao del Norte banana plantations
10 September 2009, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Aside from natural pesticides, Pheromone traps are highly effective to bring down the population level of menacing pests without serious threat to predators in eco-friendly way.
It is with great interest that I read Ceres
Doyo’s column “Bad Bananas and Collateral Damage.” (Inquirer,
8/13/09) While my affiliation to Davao is limited to the fact that
my wife and her two brothers were born in Davao City, my concern is
in my sincere belief that somewhere, somehow, there is a better,
safer and more mutually beneficial way of protecting bananas from
pests than the aerial spraying of harmful chemical pesticides.
It may interest Doyo, and the banana growers most
of all, that a solution to protect bananas from the Black Sigatoka
virus (Mycosphaerella fijiensis) has been found. This was brought to
my attention by my Japanese friend, Morihisa Ono, who is a fruit and
vegetable distributor in Gumma Prefecture in Japan.
In 2008, Ono told me about a natural organic
pesticide, made from neem extract, which he had developed with
Yasuhito Narushima, a Japanese farmer producing tea leaves in
Shizuoka Prefecture. Basic materials of crushed neem seeds and
shredded neem leaves are mixed with fish meal and other organic
materials into a slurry, which is then fermented using the same
fermentation techniques used in producing Japanese rice wine and yam
wine (known as sake and shochu, respectively). The fermentation
lasts for two months, with constant stirring to ensure equal levels
of fermentation of the mixture. To save on production costs and
ensure a steady input of raw supplies of neem seeds and neem leaves,
they set up production facilities for the neem extract at the
outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam.
The underlying principle in the application of
the neem extract is not to use it as a tool to directly swat away
and kill the Black Sigatoka virus and the Panama Disease. The neem
extract provides the basis by which the plant, be it a banana or a
papaya or rice, absorbs the natural and organic materials in the
neem and strengthens the plant’s resistance to pest infestation.
Several field tests conducted in banana farms in southern Vietnam as
well as in several banana plantations in the Santo Tomas and
Kapalong areas of Davao del Norte Province have shown the
effectiveness of the neem extract in eradicating the Black Sigatoka
virus. Aside from being an organic pesticide, neem extract is also
an excellent fertilizer which provides sustenance to the plant while
rejuvenating the soil without the use of any chemical.
I will be very happy to provide Doyo with
documented test results both from laboratory tests and field trials.
I hope that with her help, the banana producers will accept the neem
extract as an acceptable alternative to the dangerous and harmful
practice of aerial spraying.
—JOB M. AMBROSIO,
job_ambrosio@yahoo.com