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The Banana Festival is a joint undertaking of the Local Government of Malita and the Banana Agri-chain Competitiveness Enhancement (B-ACE) program in collaboration with the Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Education farmer cooperatives, public and private schools and the private secotor.
The B-ACE program, which is being managed and implemented by Strategic Development Cooperation Asia (SDCAsia), is made possible with the generous support of the American people through the USAID Enterprise Development – Implementation Grant Program. The goal of the program is to promote broad-based growth by improving competitiveness of value chains crucial to improving incomes and sustainability of livelihoods of the majority in the cardava/banana chips industry.
One of the highlights of the festival is the Pabonggahan 2007, a competition on the Best Cardava Banana which aims to draw out and facilitate the dissemination of emerging good practices of Malita banana farmers. Another exciting activity that would surely be a crowd gatherer is the Banana Cook Fest 2007 to be participated by the budding chefs of Malita. This contest aims to promote the optimal and judicious utilization of cardava banana for main dishes, desserts, and snack food. A Banana Quiz Show will also be conducted on January 19, 2007 in coordination with the Department of Education.
Mayor Franklin P. Bautista and Vice Mayor Allan Colina in an initial talk expressed high hopes that the Banana Festival will bring out the best of Malitanons and, at the same time, serve as the venue for discovering Malita’s best food that its people can truly be proud of. According to them, the LGU will provide support to winning recipes in as far as product development is concern. The B-ACE Program will assist in the commercialization as well as dissemination of best practices.
Interested participants for these contest can visit the office of the vice mayor to get their application forms. Contest date is January 19, 2006. (SDCAsia)
