agriculture

Group eyed to help banana exporters

LA PRENSA

harvest help:Central American governments may revive the UPEB to help banana producers get better prices.1060446

Regional governments are looking at reviving the Unión de Países Exportadores de Banano (UPEB) by the end of this year to help producers better market their crops.

The ministro de Desarrollo Agropecuario, Guillermo Salazar, said that the negotiations to revive the group began several months ago, and that ministers from several countries will be in Panama in late July or early August to continue those discussions.

Other countries participating in the negotiations are Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The UPEB was originally created by Omar Torrijos Herrera in 1974 as a way for Central American countries to obtain higher prices for their farmers.

Panama's banana industry has been struggling of late. For the last two years bananas have been the country's third-largest export, after having traditionally been the largest. Exports have fallen by around 7.5 percent in the first six months of this year. Salazar said that reviving the UPEB should help the industry.“The banana is a strategic regional crop, and if we work together, rather than in isolation, we can get better results,” Salazar said.

Salazar declined to talk in detail about the negotiations, but said that the creation of a pricing cartel or the reintroduction of an export tax, which was abolished by Panama in 1997, have not been part of the discussions.

Panama's banana industry has undergone many recent changes. This year the Cooperativa de Servicios Múltiples de Puerto Armuelles (Coosemupar) ended its association with Chiquita Brands and started selling its product independently.

The cooperative, which represents 2,800 banana workers, has been able to increase its orders for the coming year, but its success has not been duplicated by other producers, and several farms have stopped production because of lagging sales.