In the theory and practice of international trade a country is expected to invest heavily in goods and services in whose production it enjoys a comparative advantage of one kind or another. It is expected to exploit to the hilt the comparative advantage with which it is endowed.
A product in whose production the Philippines enjoys a comparative advantage is abaca, perhaps better known worldwide as Manila hemp. This country’s comparative advantage in the production of abaca derives from the fact that abaca is grown only in only two countries besides the Philippines, to wit, Ecuador and Costa Rica, where it is known not as abaca but as sisal or henequen. Limited competition is undoubtedly a distinct comparative advantage in international trade.
Up until the Commonwealth era abaca production was a major item in Philippine agriculture, with the Bicol region and Leyte as the centers of cultivation. During the years immediately preceding World War II Japanese capital was heavily invested in the establishment of abaca plantations in the Davao area. Production of abaca flourished after the war – thanks mainly to the growing demand of rope-making industry – and until the 1970s abaca was a major item in Philippine export trade.
Then bad times set in. Government and private-sector attention shifted to other important agricultural products – rice, corn, sugar, tobacco, meat, fruits and vegetables – and abaca plantations increasingly became neglected. Hectarage planted to abaca progressively declined.
This is an enormous pity because of the numerous special industrial and consumer items that are produced from abaca. Besides rope for the shipping and related industries abaca processing gives rise to tea bags, security paper, sausage casings, cigarette paper and surgical masks. It can truly be said that abaca is like no other agricultural product.
At the rate that things are going, with inadequate new investment and little spending on infrastructure, the abaca industry will dwindle into insignificance within two decades. But with a new program that has just been announces by the Department of Agriculture (DA), that fate may be averted.
The new DA program is a five-year, P5 billion program intended to place an additional 90,000 hectares under abaca cultivation. Priority will be accorded to the acquisition of modern technology, improved planting materials, fertilizers and state-of-the-art stripping machines.
The program will kick off in one of the historical centers of abaca production in this country, Southern Leyte. An additional 1,500 hectares will be brought under abaca cultivation with an initial P100 million release. Under the industry’s current technology 1,500 seedlings are planted per hectare; the technology that will be introduced calls for the planting of almost three times that number – 4,000 seedlings – per hectare.
Secretary of Agriculture Manuel Pinol has been informed that the inusa variety grows very well in Southern Leyte. It will be the favored variety for the Southern Leyte segment of the new abaca program.
The Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (Philfida) has been instructed to get started on the program. The list of things that need to be done is long. It includes production of planting materials, disease management, improved fertilizer application, better spacing of plants and enhancement of cultural management practices.
Despite the diminished interest that it has been experiencing at the hands of both the government and the private sector, the Philippine abaca industry continues to generate significant foreign-exchange revenues. In the early part of 2017 exports of abaca products ran at a rate double that of the preceding year. The January figure was $11 million.
The progress of the new program for the abaca industry should lead to the revival of ports that have historically been closely associated with the abaca export trade, such as Tabaco City (Albay) and Malitbog (Southern Leyte).
May the new abaca program mark the beginning of a sustained rescuscitation of one of this country’s oldest and proudest agricultural industries.
