Banana crops in the Caribbean will not recover fully until at least next year from the effects of Hurricane Dean, potentially leaving the European banana market to feel a shortage in the short term.
The islands of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Dominica and St Lucia all felt the hurricane at full force as it flattened plantations and homes, and even claimed lives.
Early unconfirmed Jamaican estimates from JP Fresh were that 100 per cent of production at Eastern Farm and 75-80 per cent of production at St Mary’s Farm further north had been lost, just as much of production was becoming Fairtrade accredited. The effect for the company is that it will be sourcing from Costa Rica and West Africa to meet programmes. “We will make sure our customers are supplied, but there will be pressure on everyone and bananas will be short for a time,” warned JP Fresh’s Dickon Poole. “This will not just affect the UK, but all of Europe.”
Bernard Cornibert, md of Windwards Bananas, told freshinfo that 85 per cent of the Dominica crop had been lost, 60-70 per cent of St Lucia’s and about 10 per cent of St Vincent’s. “Because St Lucia accounts for about half of the Windwards crop, overall losses are about 40 per cent of total volume from the island,” he said. “As far as our customers are concerned, we cannot leave them without bananas, and for our Fairtrade customers, we are hoping to source fruit from the Dominican Republic.”
Cornibert said that a setback such as this was “another nail in the coffin” for growers in a market that “has already had a terrible bashing. We would not be able to compete unless we had a Fairtrade niche product, and now even that is coming under pressure... we would love an uplift in prices.”
And in the French West Indies, Christian Choupin of the Martinique and Guadeloupe Producers’ Union said the hurricane had struck with devastating effect. “Production in Martinique has been completely destroyed,” he said. “And about 80 per cent of production in Guadeloupe has been lost. We will only be back in production in March next year.”
However, he said that it is just the plantations that have been destroyed; infrastructure, packhouses and roads are all still in place.
But he pointed out that French production is only part of the picture in Europe. “The European market takes 4.5 million boxes a week,” said Choupin. “Of that, the French West Indies send only about 250,000 boxes, so although there will be some loss of volume, there should not be a sense of panic. The fact that Ecuador is also going to be a little short over the next few months should mean that prices are going to increase, but probably only a little bit.”
The hurricane also comes as a bitter blow to Sainsbury’s, which recently went over to 100 per cent Fairtrade bananas, predominantly from the region. “Sainsbury’s is committed to supporting its growers and their communities on the islands affected by Hurricane Dean,” a spokeswoman told freshinfo. “...the current impact on supply has been minimal. We are also in communication with Fairtrade to see what kind of contribution we can make, as they have people on the ground there.”
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