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Ministry discusses extension of banana emergency
Posted On 28 Oct 2011
In the Second World Banana Summit, held this week in Guayaquil, the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Ivan Wong, announced that the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries (MAGAP for its acronym in Spanish) is considering an extension for the second banana emergency to comply with the spraying of plantations, which has not been done during the ten weeks leading declaration.
He said that he still does not know what the term is because there is a banana sector that refuses to the extension. For his part, President of the Chamber of Banana Producers of El Oro, Raul Lara, criticized a possible second emergency extension of the banana trade as it ensures that it has been ten weeks and the Ministry of Production has not delivered the resources for spraying of plantations yet.
Wong said that during the declaration of emergency, the MAGAP purchased about 225,000 bunches of bananas, presented only by small producers, at $ 2, as the fruit was rotting on the farms due to falling international prices.
He explained that an approval is needed to start spraying, because the Ministry of Agriculture is not the only entity involved. “We have done research and have given support to producers to be ready for spraying.”
He also stressed that emergency resources are the product of a withholding tax on exports, “money is property of the sector, it is important that the money is there and can be used when needed, obviously there is a need of fulfilling all respective processes for authorizations and start-availability. ”
(MS)
