Solving malnutrition! Banana Bread For Children From MinDA, SimplyShare

Yesterday in Cebu City, I had a half-day engagement with one of the country’s leading doctors who also advocates the reduction of malnutrition among poor Filipino children.

When I told Dr. Rowena Burden that every year Mindanao’s vast plantations and farms of the export-bound Cavendish Bananas throw away an estimated 1-million metric tons of rejects, her eyes literally twinkled.

We right away agreed to start a venture which would process the banana rejects into nutritious food for the country’s malnourished children.

A foundation she belongs to, SimplyShare Foundation, Inc. will partner with the Mindanao Development Authority for the establishment of a banana flour processing facility.

I called up Usec Janet Lopoz, OIC of MinDA since my resignation Oct. 5, to link up MinDA with SimplyShate Foundation for the project.

Banana rejects are hands or fingers which are either too small or too big for the market standards.

Also included in the rejects are bananas which are blemished during harvest or handling from the farm to the packing houses.

The bananas which meet market standards are packed in 13-kilo cardboard boxes which are loaded into refrigerated containers and shipped abroad.

The rejects are either given out to workers’ groups who feed the bananas to their animals or process these into chips or flours.

Those which could not be absorbed by the backyard processors are just thrown in dumps to rot.

Many of the big banana farms are just too willing to share the banana rejects as part of their CSR projects.

The Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) had explored partnerships with groups interested to turn the banana rejects into flour to feed Mindanao’s hungry children.

The program aims to address malnutrition in many rural areas in the island.

With this program, we will be turning thousands of tons of banana rejects into food which would nurture healthy Filipino childrem.

#BananaRejectsToFood!

#FeedingHungryChildren!

(This video footage was taken in the MADC farm of Unifrutti Phils. by Mayette Tudlas, MinDA OC.)