Jackfruit FIESTA opens at Baybay City

By Philippine Information Agency (PIA 8)
August 6, 2012

BAYBAY CITY, Leyte  –  A two-day Jackfruit FIESTA opened in the morning of August 6, 2012 at the Visayas State University in Baybay City, Leyte.

Spearheaded by the Visayas Consortium for Agriculture and Resources Program and the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Unit 8, the Jackfruit FIESTA is a collaborative effort to further push Eastern Visayas as the Jackfruit Capital of the country.

The thrust is towards globally competitive and sustainable Jackfruit industry in Eastern Visayas.

Mr. Francis Rosaroso, chief information officer of DA-8 informed that the opening program gathered about 150 people coming from the government and private sectors and from the stakeholders of the jackfruit industry from all over Eastern Visayas.

FIESTA, Rosaroso said is the acronym for the Farms and Industry Encounters thru Science and Technology Agenda.

Highlights of the two-day activity include the Jackfruit Forum and Roadmap Development Workshop, media conference, product demo, poster and essay writing competition, “pinaka” contest and jingle contest, among others, according to Rosaroso.

Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam), locally known as “Nangka”, is one of the popular fruit species in the Philippines. This is manifested by its wide distribution and cultivation. Its many uses (at least 18 has been recorded so far) and excellent adaptation to a range of growing conditions may have contributed to its popularity.

Jackfruit is an evergreen tree, which grows up to 70 feet under favorable conditions. It also bears fruit as early as 3 years after planting and produces fruit that weighs as much as 50 kg.

In the Region, production has steadily increased through the years, which enables Eastern Visayas to ship to other regions and major cities like Cebu and Manila, some 100 to 500 fruits or 2-3 tons per week.

Eastern Visayas has the best jackfruit variety. Claimed by scientists as the sweetest jackfruit ever, with a taste and aroma far more superior than all the rest, is the new jackfruit variety called EVIARC Sweet which grows to about seven meters and produces an average of 35 fruits annually, each weighing about 12 kilograms, nearly half (42.58 percent) of it edible.

It is golden yellow, juicy, very sweet, smooth and crispy textured with a very strong aroma that only langka can give.

Nearly 3,000 has. of jackfruit are planted in Eastern Visayas, and already about 15 percent of that is EVIARC Sweet. The largest farm is a 30-hectare jackfruit plantation in Ormoc City.

Dr. Carlos S. De la Cruz, head of the Regional Integrated Agricultural Research Center (RIARC) in Abuyog which developed the EVIARC Sweet said EVIARC is named after its parent institution, the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) Eastern Visayas Integrated Agricultural Research Center.

One reason for the take off is that the cleft grafting of EVIARC Sweet has a 92-percent success rate in propagation, De la Cruz said.

EVIARC Sweet was certified a new variety in 2006. Since then, farmers have been trained on cleft grafting which joins a rootstock and a scion (or "branch") of a mother tree until they are united permanently; it is the most common method of propagating jackfruit.

Leyte now has 28 scion groves or nurseries where seedlings are raised.