Thousands of hectares of banana crops have been reported damaged in Mexico and Guatemala tropical storm Barbara, with wind speeds of more than 60mph, last weekend. The storm is a double whammy for growers as their plantations had scarcely recovered from hurricane Stan.
Meanwhile, storms in Cameroon on May 27 are not likely to affect to banana volumes from the country to the UK, two of the largest importers have said.
Despite press reports that Del Monte plantations had been hit and the firm would be losing 35,000 boxes a week, Del Monte Fresh Produce (UK)’s managing director Peter Miller told freshinfo that sendings to the UK will not be affected. “The information we have is that there will be no impact on UK banana volumes,” he said. “We don’t know what the overall impact is, but we are not going to see a reduction in our volumes from Cameroon to the UK.”
And at JP Fresh, part of the Dole group, the story was similar. “We have checked with our sources and they have not been affected,” said the company’s Dickon Poole. “This was not major blowdown like you get in the tropics, and the effects were very localised.”
Reports in the African press had indicated that more than 700 hectares of banana production were affected.
Meanwhile, officials from the ministry of agriculture in St Vincent have confirmed that banana plant samples taken to the UK for testing have come back positive for the moko disease. The condition is a difficult one to eradicate and affects the plant rather than the fruit.
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