La Palma goes bananas

As the price of bananas continues in freefall as far as local producers are concerned, the sector in La Palma has announced it is to dump 675,000 kilos in a bid to rebalance the saturated mainland market and improve prices.

The island is heavily dependent on its banana industry and producers have decided drastic circumstances call for drastic measures. The crisis they face is said to be the worst anyone can recall. Of the 3,379,000 kilos scheduled to be embarked for the mainland last week, some 20% had to be shed simply because so much of the fruit was on offer throughout Spain.

Farmers here claim the situation is unsustainable. The 21 céntimos they receive per kilo is not enough to cover costs. Nevertheless the price per kilo in the shops is currently around 2 euros, a massive mark up for the retailers of around 400% and at 2 euros a kilo, bananas are just not shifting with the consequence that a backlog of epic proportions is forming in La Palma where the lack of rain is adding to the costs borne by producers.

Meanwhile as if that wasn’t enough there are more problems for the Canary banana as a scam has revealed that “bananas” from South America are being passed off as plátanos de canarias in Spain. It seems as if growers in that continent are deliberately producing smaller fruit with the distinctive brown markings characteristic of the Canary banana and exporting them to Spain. They look similar but the taste is poles apart; consumers however don’t realize they have been duped before it is too late and they have purchased their fake plátanos.

Source: tenerifenews.com