Eastern Visayas eyes PH jackfruit capital tag

TACLOBAN CITY, Aug. 1 -- Experts have been drafting the jackfruit roadmap for Eastern Visayas, reviving the region’s goal to be the country’s jackfruit capital.

Last week, technical experts from the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional office started drafting the first ever jackfruit roadmap for the region. It will be presented to a committee of the Regional Development Council on the third week of August.

Andrew Orais, DA assistant regional director for operations, said the plan is meant for three registered jackfruit varieties, but the main focus is the sweet variety produced by the Eastern Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Center (EVIARC) based in Abuyog, Leyte.

“At present, we rank fourth in terms of production area nationwide, but we have more areas devoted to high quality and sweet variety than other regions,” Orais told the Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Wednesday.

Under the proposed 2019-2022 roadmap, the target is to plant the EVIARC sweet variety in more than 4,000 hectares.

Before super typhoon Yolanda battered the region in 2013, there were about 1,000 hectares of established sweet jackfruit plantation in the region. Also part of the roadmap is to conduct an inventory on the existing jackfruit plantation in the region.

“In the past decade, we envisioned to become the country’s jackfruit capital, but it was not realized with less support from the national government. We are more optimistic now with no less than DA Secretary Manny Piñol promoting our sweet jackfruit variety,” Orais said.

The roadmap also includes support for the native variety for vegetable production and timber processing of old jackfruit trees.

“After the presentation at the regional level, the document will be forwarded to the central office for integration to the national roadmap. We will also meet all agencies involved in the promotion, production and marketing of jackfruit,” Orais added.

EVIARC sweet jackfruit is aromatic, ellipsoid in shape and contains moderate latex with a golden yellow color. The tree is seven meters tall with spreading branches. It produces an average of 35 fruits per cropping.

The National Seed Industry Council, which is tasked to regulate seed listing in the country, has acknowledged the EVIARC-produced jackfruit as a registered type “after series of testing of productivity and acceptability.”

Few years back, the Visayas State University in Babay City has developed vacuum fried technology for jackfruit after they have found out that it has an edge to compete with other commercialized dried fruits. The school has been producing 58,080 packs of vacuum fry jackfruits every year mainly for local consumption.

The DA regional office here chose jackfruit in 1996 as its banner crop under the high value commercial crop program. Under the program, the varietal collection and selection started. Selected varieties were mass produced and introduced to interested farmers under the plant now pay later program.

For decades, jackfruit has remained as a backyard crop. It still leads all other minor fruit crops in production, ranking 6th overall after the country’s major fruit crops such as banana, mango, papaya, pineapple and citrus. (PNA)