agriculture

Banana crisis continues

Thousands of hectares of crops heva been lost to pests and disease since November.

Many doubt that the Coosemupar cooperative will be able to survive its current crisis.

eric batista/la prensa

wasting away: Without the necessary irrigation, fertilizers and pesticides, banana plants on Coosemupar plantations are dying, leading many to believe that the troubled cooperative will not survive.1147187

Coosemupar, one of the country's largest banana-growing cooperatives, is in serious danger of not being able to recover from a multitude of problems plaguing it.

The cooperative, which employs some 2,850 workers, basically went out of business in November when it had to stop production because it was unable to pay its bills.

The company's financial problems, however, are not the most pressing issue facing the company. Instead, it is the spread of the Black Sigatoka disease, which attacks the leaves of banana trees, cutting their output by as much as 50 percent.

Some 3,200 hectares of banana trees have been severely impacted by the disease, costing the cooperative an estimated $21 million in lost crops.

Because of Coosemupar's financial problems, most of its plantations have gone without fertilizers and pesticides for the last three months. They allowed the disease to spread uncontrolled. It has gotten so bad that workers are barely able to harvest enough bananas to feed their families.

During a tour of the plantations by La Prensa reporters, they found that some workers have done their best to try and take care of some areas by removing leaves infected with the disease, but these efforts have not been very successful. Other groups of workers gather daily at the packing plants awaiting answers from the government, which has assisted the cooperative financially for the past five years.

Workers say that nothing can be done about the existing problems, and that the only solution is to plant new trees. It is estimated that it would take at least eight months for them to be ready to bear fruit. Now that the dry season has arrived, many banana trees are struggling because the plantations' irrigation systems are not operating.

Minister of Agricultural Development Olmedo Espino said that this is a very complicated problem and he is trying to find a way out. Coosemupar Manager Nidia Medina declined to comment.

The crisis affecting Coosemupar has also been felt in Puerto Armuelles, where most of the bananas were sent for export. Alberto Carbonó, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce of Puerto Armuelles, said that the problem is affecting the entire province of Chiriqui. “It's a difficult issue, and it is directly affecting merchants both large and small,” the business leader said.

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