According to Axel Herrera Seminario, director of Piura's Regional Agricultural Directorate's Agricultural Competitiveness, by the end of the year Piura could have exported 130,000 tons of organic bananas.
He said the region had 6,500 hectares of organic bananas and that they had an average yield of 20 tons per hectare. 5,000 of these hectares are located in the valley of Chira and the rest in Alto Piura (Morropón) and San Lorenzo (Tambo Grande, Las Lomas).
He also noted that 6,300 farmers were dedicated to this crop in the region, and that nearly 90% of them were in Chira.
Axel Herrera also noted that, by the end of September 2014, Piura had exported 90,484 tons of organic bananas worth $67 million dollars (the organic banana's average price amounts to $0.74 per kilo).
The main target markets are the Netherlands (where it is redistributed throughout Europe) and the USA.
Next year Piura will export 160,000 tons
Additionally, Axel Herrera said that, according to projections, Piura would export 160,000 tons of organic bananas in 2015; an increase that would be mostly due to the start of production of 1,000 new hectares of this crop.
"There are two private companies that have invested in ecological bananas; one is Dole, which has installed 500 hectares in Alto Piura, and the other is a Chilean company that planted 500 hectares in Chira. These fields will begin production next year," he said.
Source: agraria.pe