Manila Bulletin via SEAMEO SEARCA

Believe it or not, the eggplant, known in Filipino as talong, is now the favorite vegetable of Filipinos.

Recent findings that it is nutritious also pushed many Filipinos to splurge on the cheap vegetable, making it the No. 1 veggie in the country today.

But do you know that production of eggplant has been severely hampered by pests known as the fruit and shoot borer?

Farmers have long been using pesticides to kill the pesky fruit and shoot borer and many farmers in Bukidnon and South Cotabato have resorted to spraying eggplants with pesticides, which invariably end up poisoning the environment and humans as well.

Scientists have developed a response to this problem, which is common among Mindanao vegetable growers.

Now, these savants say that a breed of eggplant can resist the fruit and shoot borer and the government is now being geared up for initial field-testing in Bay, Laguna.

Confident that the National Biosafety Committee of the Philippines (NCBP) will approve its commercial release in due time, Dr. Josefina Narciso of the Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB), principal investigator of the project, said they expect to release the Philippine-tested fruit and shoot borer resistant eggplant (FSBR) in the market next year.

The eggplant, considered the next staple food in the archipelago, next to rice, is generally planted in small plantations in the low-elevation areas of Mindanao, Cagayan Valley, Ilocos region, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, and Central and Western Visayas.

At the very least, 20,000 hectares are devoted to the production of eggplants. This land area generates 179,000 metric tons in annual yield of the crop that provides the much-needed potassium and phosphorous in the Filipinos' diet.

Sadly, 25 percent of eggplant production cost goes to chemical pesticides, making the farmers and the Philippines economy lose more than 50 percent of its investments.

Another setback in the extensive use of chemicals as pesticides is that the pests, in time gets immune to the pesticides, making the farmers use more chemicals, all of which threaten to turn the eggplant into a chemical cocktail.

In December 20, 2005, the Bureau of Plant Industries (BPI) through the Plant Quarantine Services (PQS), approved the importation of FSBR eggplant breeding materials from India.

(BioLife News Service)