Assessing benefits and costs of commercial banana production in the Philippines

Abstract

The Philippine banana industry is currently one of the top agricultural export earners. The increasing demand worldwide has resulted in greater expansion of area planted to banana, including those in environmentally critical places. Current high chemical input technologies used in banana production have been documented to have significant environmental and public health costs. In this paper, we assess the social costs and private benefits of banana production by commercial growers. We used primary data in Bukidnon to argue that government policies can provide incentives and promote environmental stewardship to achieve a net positive outcome from banana production.