Last week, at the last assembly held in Los Rios, banana producers agreed that they would ask the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries (MAGAP), Javier Ponce, to increase the price of a box of bananas to $ 6.00 dollars.
They aspire for a new price on the box of bananas starting next year and justify their demand based on the increases in production costs and the current employee regularization. They want the minister to analyze the proposal and comunicate it with the country’s exporters.
The price of the banana box that the farmers will suggest to the minister at a meeting next week is still unknown. Paul Gonzalez, President of Machala’s Agricultural Center, assured that his colleagues weren’t overpricing the fruit, "we are aware that we can’t lose competitiveness, but we are talking about prices consistent on a cost matrix we have,” he said.
Gonzalez said that everybody agrees the official price should increase, and he recalled that the ministerial agreement specified that the 41.5 pound banana box (18.8 kilos) would be priced at U.S. $6.00, and a proportional increase.
Therefore, the rate must undergo adjustments. He explained that the 43 pound banana box (19.5 kilos) costs $ 6.22, while for those with a weight less than 43 pounds, the price will be proportional." All our boxes are 43 pounds, however we are only paid 6.00 as official price. Due to those 0.22 cents that we aren’t being paid, banana producers are losing up to 55,000,000 dollars a year if we export 250 million boxes," he said.
Source: diariopinion.com