Bananas in South-America

Hi everyone!

I am Julie and I am going to tell you more about bananas in Latin-America.

Latin-America dominates the global banana economy, and it represents an important source of income for these countries. Latin American countries export bananas to countries all over the world. They export to the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Ecuador, which is the world’s largest banana exporter, Costa Rica and Colombia are countries where the majority of Europe's bananas come from. 

The exporting countries in Central America like Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador, are known as 'dollar banana' countries because they are traditionally exported to North-America and produced by the United States' multinational companies like Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte. These companies  directly or indirectly control around 60 per cent of their banana exports.

The commercial banana production started around 1817 in Costa Rica.

What’s going on with the bananas in the world at the moment?

Colombia

According to the traders, the production has grown by around 13%.

1)  Europe remains the most important market, accounting for about 70% of sales.

2)  The American market with a share of 18%.

The prices are reasonably good and no changes in the demand are reported yet. The government is investing to increase production.

Colombia exports around 120,000 boxes of bananas per week and continues to consolidate as one of the leading producers of this fruit in the world. Colombia is the third largest exporter of bananas in the world after Ecuador and Costa Rica.

The banana export from Colombia continues to grow. The reason for this increase is because the bananas can be transported in refrigerated containers with container ships. These ships have a higher competitive capacity because of the lower costs and because they are more efficient.

Costa Rica

The weather in Costa Rica picked up well this year for the banana growers in the country. The demand has increased. A grower reports that the production will reach 2 million boxes this year. Black Sigatoka, a disease in Costa Rica, is a problem in the humid Costa Rica, but for now it can be well controlled.

Ecuador

The harvest has been delayed by a few weeks due to the weather change. Because the temperature is lower, the production has decreased. In addition, demand from Europe will fall due to the holiday season on the continent. At the moment, the demand is still stable, the decline in week 18 was already used. The same picture can be seen in the prices, normally the prices in this period are low. Ecuadorian exporters suspect that this is because other countries in the region can deliver fewer bananas.

 
Peru

Due to climate change, production has declined. In the past three weeks the temperature was 3 to 4 degrees below the average. This has consequences for the harvest that is delayed by this. Production has fallen but demand has increased. The demand is growing especially for biobanans. Growers struggle to meet the demand. The demand is expected to fall in the coming weeks. For this year a growth of 10 percent in production and export is expected.

Fun facts about bananas

1. The origin of the banana republic began with the introduction of the banana fruit to the United States: Banana republic is a politically unstable country with an economy dependent on exports of a product with limited resources, such as bananas, minerals. Countries like Honduras or Guatemala are called banana republics.

2. According to the horticultural definition, the banana is counted among the vegetables. However, according to the culinary definition, it is a fruit, because the banana is eaten as a dessert or as a snack.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!