Despite being a fruit that is very rich in carbohydrates and potassium, which makes it one of the best ways to nourish the body, currently up to 100 tons of bananas are being wasted because there is no market for it at the local or national level and it is being sold at six pesos per kilo.
Banana producers agree that the sector is in crisis, that they urgently need prices to increase, and that there's a great need for opening marketing channels because they currently have no resources to send the fruit to supply centers and to distribute it.
There was an attempt to form the Association of Banana Producers from the Valley of Apatzingan over a year ago, but it only included the "high and mighty" producers, leaving the minority producers out.
Only one producer had dared, many years ago, to market value-added products such as dehydrated bananas, but "not all producers have the resources to invest in the industry, we haven’t even been able to materialize the ethanol project based on banana," said Samuel Valle Pantoja, producer and marketer.
"Bananas have many medicinal benefits that we have to highlight to promote the fruit so people buy them to stop the production from declining further," said Valle Pantoja. He regretted that the Association of Banana Producers had focused on looking for projects for a small group of producers and not for all the 300 producers in the area.
50 percent of production, i.e. 150 tons per day, are maturing in the trees because there are no external markets to place the fruit, buyers are afraid of the problems there are and choose to retire to Colima to buy bananas. Additionally, producers have reduced their workforce in the orchards from nearly 50 to 15 labourers who do little work on the field.
In face of this, banana producers haven’t discarded the idea of replacing their banana crops with alternative crops that are more profitable. However, they still have hopes to maintain production, which is why next year they will focus on making a campaign about the benefits of eating bananas in the supply centres in the country and the municipality with the aim of increasing consumption among the population.
Source: cambiodemichoacan.com.mx