Exporters hold talks with producers to buy bunches and prevent bananas from leaving the country at low prices

Banana exporters and producers are jointly outlining new strategies to cushion the impact of the fruit that is not exported to Russia and Ukraine due to the armed conflict and that only last week meant that 750,000 boxes of bananas remained in the country.

Richard Salazar, executive director of the Banana Marketing and Export Association (Acorbanec), revealed to Diario EL UNIVERSO that they are in talks with their associates and these at the same time with their producers so that the exporters buy the fruit at the level of clusters that have not been able to be sent to these markets and donate them to food programs of the different prefectures. at the national level.

More than a million boxes of bananas have not been exported due to complications from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine

The leader assured that it is preferable to do that than for that fruit to go abroad with quite low prices and damage and distort the price market.

“This is by consensus, by mutual agreement between producers and exporters that we are doing it with a dual purpose: the first is to prevent it from coming out and distorting prices from abroad, and second, that it is delivered as a source of food for the different programs that they have. the prefectures in the country; the bottom of that in general is precisely to preserve employment in Ecuador”, said Salazar.

Meanwhile, in the last few hours, the alternative of applying a supply reduction policy on banana farms has also been considered, which according to José Antonio Hidalgo, executive director of the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE)it would also be an agreement between producers and exporters.

The leader maintained in other media that the problem of oversupply threatens prices and other fruit markets.

“This is something that each exporter is discussing with their producer, supply management, that is something between private parties,” said the leader, who revealed that internal sessions are being held to clarify this strategy.

For its part, Franklin Torres, president of the Federation of Banana Producers of Ecuador (Fenabe), assured that in many cases, in practice, there are no agreements and that some exporters have sent 50% of the contracted fruit as spotthat is, below the minimum support price (PMS).

Second mobilization of banana growers who insist that the sector be declared in emergency

“It is difficult to say that there is an ‘agreement’, the dominant position of the export sector and without fair arbitration ends up being an imposition… In reality they are only taking part of the amount contracted and the rest is also taken, but in the named price spot, which for this week is $2 (a box). This entails a general bankruptcy of the production sector”, explained the leader.

He assured that this situation represents losses for independent producers of nearly $20 million weekly. “5 million boxes from independent producers, multiply by $4 less per box of bananas,” calculated Torres, who assured that they have not received a response to the sector’s request for a direct dialogue with the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso.

“It is unfortunate that the banana agricultural producer is not taken into account, it seems that they do not want to hear the truth,” lamented the president of Fenabe.