"Bunchy tops" virus infesting abaca trees in Samar, Leyte

CEBU, Philippines - The Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA) in the Samar-Leyte region, is calling on the local governments in the area and the national government to help it combat a disease infesting abaca trees in the area.

Abaca, known globally as Manila Hemp, is one of the raw materials used by exporters, for furniture, home furnishing, gifts, toys and housewares, and even fashion accessories.

Jefrey Espena, FIDA regional director in Eastern Visayas said that in less than three years since the deadly “bunchy tops” virus was detected to have started destroying standing abaca trees in several towns in Leyte, the extent of infestation has reached 19,000 hectares or close to half of 45,121 hectares planted to abaca in six provinces.

Abaca is the last agricultural crop in the Philippines that the country can still claim dominance supplier, accounting for 85 percent of world supply, a report from the Philexport indicated.

The sturdy fiber stripped from its trunks is exported as raw fiber, as abaca pulp paper, in the form of ropes and to a limited scale, as handicraft products.

Japan is the biggest importer using the fiber as the chief raw material in making its paper money, the Yen.

The infestation is most extensive in Leyte proper and Southern Leyte but the viral disease has been detected to have started invading plantations in Samar, Espena revealed.

The disease, which stunts the growth of infected plants, has resulted in the stagnation in the harvest of fresh abaca fiber in the past two years. It has become a menace to the region’s second largest export crop, next only to coconut, the fiber official revealed.

The Leyte-Samar region was known until the infestation took its toll, as the country’s top producer of abaca fiber. It hosts several exporting companies and two pulp factory plants based in Baybay City. Bicol region has reclaimed that record.

FIDA said that it has developed a system of eradicating the aphid-carried viruses that retard the growth of the world’s strongest natural fiber but FIDA’s limited yearly budget for disease eradication allows it only to disinfect two towns a year.

Espena estimated that his office spends about P3,000 to destroy the disease in a hectare of abaca plantation and can supply for free the healthy suckers or siblings that are planted in disinfected plantations. That would cost P70 million to wage a region-wide disease eradication offensive.

Given sufficient funds, he said his agency could reduce infestation to a tolerable five percent of the whole region in only three to five years.

Espena further suggested that a moratorium in the gathering of “umbak” which has been proven to be one of the main causes of the rapid spread of the disease be declared, while FIDA is eradicating the bunchy tops virus in the region.

Umbak is the dried leaf sheaths of growing trees used as decorative raw material by Cebu furniture and home furnishing makers. — (FREEMAN)