High winds and heavy rains have caused considerable damage to the Canary Islands’ banana sector, leaving a situation that one leading producer association has described as “catastrophic”.
Fierce storms struck the Spanish archipelago late last week during three days, causing considerable damage to banana plantations, while avocado and citrus production on the islands are also understood to have been affected.
In a statement, Francisco Rodriguez, president of the Canaries’ Association of Organisations of Banana Producers (Asprocan) said that plantations in the islands had suffered widespread damage, although no official estimate was as yet available.
Despite this, Asprocan said that it had already been possible to verify that the storm would have “major repercussions” for the entire banana sector in the Canaries.
Mr Rodriguez said that before the storm the sector had hoped to collect a production of around 17,000 tonnes of bananas. However, given the scale of the disaster, he said the outlook for the sector had become decidedly gloomy.
“This catastrophic situation, combined with the low prices for Canaries bananas due to fierce competition in the market following the reduction of the (EU) tariff, has been a heavy blow to the already battered finances of producers who are going to suffer huge losses,” Mr Rodriguez said.
Given this situation, Asprocan’s president called on the governments of Spain and the Canary Islands to “put in place measures to compensate producers to prevent the disappearance of banana production” in the islands.
By contrast, Fedex, an association representing tomato growers in the Canaries, said that damage to tomato and cucumber production had “not been as catastrophic as was initially feared, although there had been “major damage” to some greenhouses.
