By Luis Jaime Acosta
BOGOTÁ, March 14 (Reuters) – Banana exports from Colombia, the world’s fifth-largest supplier, fell 2.7% year-on-year in 2022 to 108 million 20-kilo boxes due to lower productivity due to excessive rains and a difficult market during the war between Russia and Ukraine, an industry official said on Tuesday.
According to the Colombian Banana Association (Augura), in 2021 the South American country exported 111 million boxes of 20 kilos.
The value of fruit exports totaled $892 million in 2022, slightly below the previous year’s $898.
“We are coming from 2022 where all the negative factors have reached us. A significant climate change effect, excess water between plantations with an increase in the presence of Sigatoka,” said Augura President Emerson Aguirre, in an interview with Reuters.
The leader assured that the sector was also affected last year by the high cost of fertilizers and maritime freight, as well as the war between Russia and Ukraine, which directly impacted the global banana sector.
“These two markets, in particular the Russian market, are largely served by the supply of Ecuadorian bananas. Since Ecuadorian bananas could not enter Russia, there was an oversupply of bananas in the world and prices fell in the first half,” he explained. .
The FOB price of Colombian fruit in 2022 recorded an average of $8.2 per 20-kilo box compared to $8 the previous year, Aguirre revealed.
But productivity per hectare fell by 4.5% to 2,027 boxes from 2,124 in 2021 due to increased rainfall in production areas, which also led to an increase in black Sigatoka, a disease destructive foliar disease caused by a fungus that affects the plantations, which made it necessary to reinforce the fumigations.
Bananas are the third agricultural export product after coffee and flowers, with 40,000 direct jobs, according to Augura.
The main export destinations for the fruit last year were European Union countries with 67%, the United States with 17% and the United Kingdom with 14%, Aguirre said.
Colombia detected in 2019, in the department of La Guajira, the fungus Fusarium Tropical Race 4, which causes the disease known as Panama disease, which attacks the roots of the Cavendish banana variety.
So far, the country has eradicated 200 hectares of banana plantations to control the disease, while maintaining strict sanitary control.
Colombia, the world’s fifth-largest fruit exporter after Ecuador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Philippines, closed 2022 with 53,318 hectares planted with bananas, 1,048 more than the previous year.
“We aim this year to recover production of 111 million boxes, increase productivity and grow by another 5%,” Aguirre concluded. (Report by Luis Jaime Acosta)