MANILA, Philippines — This is the success story of the Mama Sita banana that has become a very promising commercial variety for farmers to grow. It is one of a number of products of a collaborative research effort between a private foundation (Mama Sita Foundation) and the government.

Upon the initiative of former Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., the project he proposed was to select crops that could be introduced into the country for eventual commercial production. He prevailed on the Mama Sita Foundation to provide one million pesos, another million pesos from the Bureau of Agricultural Research and the same amount from the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARD).

The project started in 2007 with Dr. Benito S. Vergara as the implementor. Dr. Vergara is a retired scientist from the International Rice Research Institute but who is very much interested in horticultural crops – ornamental plants and fruit trees.

Dr. Vergara calls the project a different paradigm for agricultural research. He is no plant breeder but then he has the nose for the right crops that could fare well under local conditions. And that’s what happened in January 2007 when he and his wife Lina were eating in the house of a former student in Thailand. He saw a dwarf banana with thick stem that was about to flower.

Immediately, he thought that the plant would just be the right variety for typhoon-prone areas like the Philippines. To cut the story short, he immediately had the plant tissue-cultured in Thailand and then brought the plantlets to the Philippines. It took sometime before the tissue-cultured plantlets were ready for planting. They were planted in June 2008 in an experimental field in Bay, Laguna. Surprise, surprise! The bananas started flowering in February 2009. That’s much sooner than any other local banana which usually took 14 or more months to mature.

In 2009 Typhoon Ondoy also hit Los Banos. Surprise, surprise again! The Mama Sita bananas stood erect while the other varieties were downed by the strong winds.

The Mama Sita banana has been tissue-cultured locally and many farmers are already planting it in their own farms. One of them is Dr. Rene Sumaoang who has a farm in Tarlac City. He is very impressed by the performance of his plants.

The Mama Sita produces big bunches. In our own few Mama Sita plants, we have harvested as many as 260 pieces per bunch. The fruits can be eaten fresh as ripe fruit (tastes like a combination of latundan and saba), can be fried or made into chips.

We will write a more detailed story about the many results of the three-year research project conducted by Dr. Vergara in our other articles. Many agriculture researchers, particularly from the academe, are very much interested in publication points or credits that they could add to their curriculum vitae. Dr. Vergara is not interested at all. But then his research results are widely publicized in the popular media.