From production to promotion, these three executives are key to the export of the fruit. They attended the Fruit Attraction fair (Madrid).
By Melissa Gavilanes, special for EL UNIVERSO from Madrid
Marianella ubilla he had blisters on his hands. While studying agricultural engineering, in a career where the list of students showed 20 women and 80 men, field jobs became a challenge to conquer for her. But this businesswoman and banana exporter from a young age showed her determination to conquer challenges and achieve excellence.
Years later he got graduate with honors from the School of Agriculture of the Humid Tropical Region (EARTH), to direct his own family business, Agzulasa, and to preside over one of the most important institutions in the banana industry: the Association of Banana Exporters of Ecuador (AEBE). “It cost me hand injuries and tears. (…) But women are capable with our ideas of contributing, leading and achieving great things ”, she affirms.
Ubilla explains that his is family, like the company that for a long time has had plantations at km 35 of the Quevedo-Santo Domingo road. “We export not only our own fruit, but a lot of fruit from 50 small, medium and large producers, and we go to more than 25 destinations in the world every week,” she says proudly.
She is the youngest of three sisters who work together, plus her mother, who is also active in farming. That is one of the reasons why her company aims to give more job opportunities to women, although Marianella is also in favor of a gender balance at work, because “the male-female combination is excellent.” His most recent successful participation in the banana business was having led the AEBE delegation at the prestigious Fruit Attraction fair that took place in Madrid at the beginning of October, and where a large part of the bananas that will be exported the following year to the most important markets in the world are traded.
Noelia Judge
But the feminine power in the banana is also known in the house of Noelia Judge. Being the only woman among seven brothers, she has managed to be the operations manager of the Agroaéreo economic group and the owner of FruitExport, a company dedicated to export. There are now four generations of his family that have produced bananas, but as exporters and with Noelia’s drive, they have just turned five years old.
Linked to the banana business since she was 18 years old, Judge has shown both banana growers and international clients that “women can also work in the agricultural business.” And although she recognizes that, during her beginnings, some buyers were suspicious of her, she is not looking to blame, but to be motivation. Thanks to his work, he feels that he has achieved “Break the scheme that man has to lead and do it”, and to become an example for other girls who want to decide to enter a business whose paradigm is that it is for men, because you have to travel the field, negotiate with customers. “It can”.
Noelia is proud to continue doing what her father did. Work as a team, putting the details, the organization. “The male-female balance is positive when negotiating something,” he thinks.
Mary Francis Andrade
Far from operational work in the field and the export of fruit by sea, there is another key woman, Mary Francis Andrade. This Guayaquil, whose favorite fruit could not be other than bananas and that acts as a bridge to bring banana growers closer to international markets, is the Corpei commercial promotion specialist, for 17 years now.
More than 50 fairs have been in his charge for twelve years, when he assumed the leadership of exposing Ecuadorian products to buyers from around the world who come to international fairs. He admits that throughout that time he has faced several challenges, but none quite like the Fruit Attraction 2021 that a few weeks ago was fulfilled in Madrid, Spain, and that it did not have a 2020 version due to the restrictions that the pandemic imposed on a country in which there have been five waves of contagion.
This fair, which is the first face-to-face appointment during COVID-19, Mary Francis had to organize “in less than two months, which previously took between six and eight months.”
In addition to the logistics, complicated in fact by the extreme biosecurity measures, he ran into the reality that his clients were hesitant to attend due to the persistence of the pandemic. “They wanted to participate, but they were very afraid.” Today, after the successful exhibition, they are so satisfied that they have even asked to be present the following year at Fruit Logistica, which will be in Berlin.
In promoting the country, women little by little “become more empowered,” says Andrade, to whom exporters owe that their stands are usually in privileged locations within world fairs. “With whom I coordinate the space is a woman, with whom I design the stand She is another woman, and it is very interesting to join us and promote the promotion of Ecuador ”, dice.
While these three women strive every day, whether on plantations or at world fairs, to sustain one of the most important products for the country, bananas, there are hundreds of others who are already entering the business. And with them, family livelihoods will be generated, but also valuable foreign exchange to sustain Ecuador’s economy.
Guarantee training
According to a study carried out in 2014 by the Labor Commission on Gender Equality, a product of the World Banana Forum and the FAO, women represent less than 20% of the global workforce in the banana industry. In addition, the same document invites special emphasis to be placed on analyzing the socioeconomic impact of women in Ecuador, due to the importance that bananas have for our country, as well as the recommendation to guarantee systematic training in technical skills for Both genres. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
