In the initial four months of 2024, Madeira recorded a sale of 6,623.5 tons of bananas, marking an 18.7% increase from the previous year, with a total of 1,045.1 tons more bananas sold. The Regional Directorate of Agriculture and Rural Development (DRADR) provided these figures, which were later published by the Regional Directorate of Statistics of Madeira (DREM). The majority, 80.5%, of these bananas were shipped to the Mainland, up from 78.7% in the same timeframe in 2023.
DREM's report highlighted growth across all banana categories. Specifically, extra category bananas saw a 13.1% increase, the first category rose by 62.9%, and the second category grew by 12.4%. Despite the overall growth, the share of extra category bananas decreased to 78.6% from 82.5%, a drop of 3.9 percentage points. April emerged as the month with the highest sales volume at 1,956.6 tons, whereas February, despite having the lowest sales at 1,427.6 tons, experienced the highest year-on-year increase at 44.0%.
Source: madeiraislandnews.com