Global oversupply of bananas and plunging prices internationally have led Ecuador’s farm minister Stanley Vera to declare a state of emergency for the country’s banana sector.

As part of the emergency measures, the government will use a $15 million fund to buy fruit to keep it off international markets.

Eduardo Ledesma, executive director of exporters association AEBE, said: “What we want is export contracts to be respected and fruit that is not contracted not to be exported. There are five or six factors that have come together to create this situation including wars in some of our markets, economic downturn in others, competition with summer fruits in the northern hemisphere and overproduction by our producers.” Ecuador produced 153 million cartons of bananas in the first six months of 2011, up from 140m the previous year.

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