Latin American banana union summit

At the initiative of the Ecuadorian government, the Ministers for Agriculture of seven Latin American banana producer and exporter countries (Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Panama and Costa Rica) held a virtual meeting on 12 January 2022, to adopt a common position on issues like high production costs and strategies to combat Fusarium oxysporum Cubense, TR4. In their closing statement, three points had been decided:

• under the concept of shared responsibility, compensation to the growers will be set for each country and product, based on the Fair Trade reference minimum price, with a premium of one dollar for any additional box;
• under regional cooperation on combating TR4, European international organisations will be encouraged to enter an alliance to manage international resources for combating the disease, with research, training and dissemination measures;
• an official in-person and/or virtual meeting will be held at the Fruit Logistica trade fair in Berlin in April this year, and an agenda will be drawn up to promote the regional objectives in Brussels.

The participants set out to present a united front to importers, the supermarket sector and shipping companies, to demand that they take on price increases, so that shared social responsibility is understood as a moral obligation of all the segments in the value chain, not solely of the producers and exporters.

Sources: reefertrends and https://www.agricultura.gob.ec/ministros-de-agricultura-de-latinoamerica-promueven-acciones-frente-a-costos-de-produccion-y-fusarium-r4t/

Logo FT HD

Logo FT HD