Under analysis the declaration of emergency for the banana sector

The Minister of Agriculture, Pedro Alavain the appearance before the Food Sovereignty Commission of the National Assembly in the city of Machala, last Wednesday, promised to “convince” President Guillermo Lasso to obtain the repeal of Decree 183, referring to the permissibility of new plantings of banana.

In the next few hours, emerging operations committees of the banana provinces must prepare a report containing the recommendations for the Minister of Agriculture to analyze a possible declaration of emergency for the country’s banana sector.

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“In the meeting with the Commission (of the National Assembly) we have reached conclusions. Measures are going to be announced, such as declaring an emergency for the banana sector, repealing the decree that authorizes new plantings, and sanctioning those who fail to comply with the official price of the banana box,” explained the Minister of Agriculture as soon as he concluded his appearance.

Mariano Curicama, president of the Food Sovereignty Commission of the National Assembly, explained that in Machala they received several complaints (he did not specify the amount) for non-compliance by exporters; This information was delivered to the provincial prosecutor of El Oro Marcos Flores, who indicated: “I will immediately delegate a prosecutor to receive the complaints and initiate a fiscal investigation.”

Curicama collected the complaints that were presented to the Commission and delivered them to the provincial prosecutor. It was reported that these are documents that would have information on the exporters that would be failing to pay the official price of the box of bananas, said Segundo Solano, president of the Association of Banana Growers of El Oro. (I)