Fruit scarcity derails Kidapawan festival

KIDAPAWAN CITY — A scarcity of tropical fruits has forced officials to move the annual fruit festival in this southern city from August to October. City agriculturist Eufemia Marcos said fruit-bearing trees were affected by the inauspicious weather conditions in the past months. Continues rains in the past has damaged thousands of hectares of fruit-bearing trees such as durian, lanzones, mangoosten and rambutan in various plantations of the city, Marcos said. Muscle scales insects attack last year in numerous plantations of lanzones trees also impede fruit production. In Kidapawan alone some 1,500 hectares of lanzones trees were destroyed by these insects last year. The nearby towns of Magpet, Makilala and Mlang also suffered due to insects devastations. Marcos said only ten percent of the vast fruit trees plantations in various areas of the city are producing fruits. According to Marcos the produce would not be enough in the weeklong festival and might only dishearten the constituents including visitors coming from nearby towns and provinces. “Buffer harvest of tropical fruits might take place first week of October," Marcos told this writer in an ambush interview. Investment and Tourism Promotion division chief Marie Fe Pame assured that the celebration in October will be “more colorful, fruitful and will surely satisfy visitors." Pame also clarified that the celebration has no specific dates and months. “Our fruit festival is movable depending on the availability of fruits," Pame explained. The weeklong fruit festival features various activities such as float fruit parade, fruit arrangement competition, making fruits in paper mache’ fruit display and fruit preservation and technology transfer. Highlights of said celebration are street dancing competitions and fruit galore where constituents and visitors are free to eat tropical fruits line up in a three-kilometer makeshift along the city’s national highway. Last year the city government earmarked P1 million for fruit galore and tried to get the Guinness world record but in undisclosed circumstances failed. - GMANews.TV