Puerto Rico: Producers want to stop import of pineapples
"Excessive food imports are creating a crisis in the agricultural sector and endangering the country's agricultural work, rather than contributing to food security," said the president of Puerto Rico's Farmers Association, Hector Ivan Cordero.
The farmers complaints recently focus on pineapple and pineapple seed imports, particularly from Costa Rica.
Cordero also criticized the Department of Agriculture of Puerto Rico because it had awarded a contract to foreign investors for the production of pineapples in the north of the island and because it had authorized them to import more than 20 truckloads of pineapple seeds from Costa Rica in two months.
According to Cordero, they should be compelled to use pineapple seeds from Puerto Rico that are currently available, not the seeds from Costa Rica or any other place that has or could have the Fusarium oxusporumfungus, which causes pineapple rot.
In that regard, he stated that local agriculture had still not recovered from the citrus greeningepidemic, or HLB, a disease that had devastated entire plantations of oranges and grapefruit in the central area of Puerto Rico.
Source: EFE