The same story repeats itself one more week, and there are already five consecutive weeks this summer: four weeks of the month of August that has just ended, from the 32nd to the 35th, and the first of the month of September has arrived, week 36 of 2024. During this identified period, the Canary Islands have destroyed fruits, withdrawn them from the market or axas it is called in banana slang. It is a volume of food that reaches six million kilos, the sum of the quantities authorized by the Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Sovereignty of the Government of the Canary Islands for weeks 32 to 36.
This accumulated amount corresponds to the so-called compulsory and voluntary withdrawals already officially authorized, with a usual percentage of 70% for the first case and 30% for the second, always as requested. pica or destruction of the fruits by the Asprocan organization then authorized by the Ministry of Agriculture. The final assessment of what really ax We always know later, after notification by local producers to Agriculture, the final destination of the fruits taken from the market (the pica), which generally grants final levels always close to what was requested.
The reasons for this withdrawal, unusability or destruction of the fruit, which is the green banana, which, being in optimal conditions to be marketed, does not reach conventional markets, are related to the excess supply of fruit at this time of summer; that is, the surplus of goods suitable for cutting that coincides with a period in which demand decreases considerably in the only market for this Canarian fruit, that of the peninsula. Added to this, among other notable factors, is the increasingly intense competition from bananawhich already represents 50% of the supply of this fruit on the Spanish peninsula market.
Next week, September 1, 2024, the Canary Islands have a cutting mark, pineapples ready to be harvested and transported to the packaging for packaging, of 8.5 million kilos, but the peninsula at the moment, for the reasons already explained , it only supports about 5.5 million kilos per week. As it stands, there are three million kilos left. What can be done then? Due to this mismatch between supply and demand and the need to minimize the losses of Canarian producers, since what is now sold green and the first transaction in the peninsula, to ripeners, only generates losses, the Ministry of Agriculture, at the request of the Association of Banana Producers Organizations of the Canary Islands (Asprocan), considers the picawhich this week again exceeds one million kilos, of which 1.3 are authorized; that is, 15% of the amount indicated for the cut during week 36. Add it up and continue…
In this way, the Canary Islands, despite having 8.5 million kilos of bananas of sufficient quality to send to the peninsular market (the Balearic Islands and the autonomous cities are included), will only publish, as currently planned, the result of the subtraction of this total. the so-called picathe 1.3 million kilos indicated, the volume of shipments next week will continue to be very high compared to what the peninsular market can suppose: 5.5 million kilos, as recognized by producers and traders of the main Canarian fruit for the middle of the summer month. Despite this, in the week of September 2 to 8, 7.2 million kilos will be ordered.
To the detriment of the fact that in this first week of September the management of part of the pica such as the fruits delivered to the Food Bank (charity), which remains to be seen, or that exports to Morocco will involve more bananas from the islands (we don’t know that yet either), which also come from the picaIn this case, of these 1.3 million kilos, the fruit was destroyed, with a total of six million in five weeks (in 2023, a historical record year for production in the Canary Islands, there were 26 million kilos in the pica), they will become food to fatten livestock, an input to make compost, or even manure or waste handled by authorized managers or sent to environmental complexes.
Of the 1.3 million kilos announced as the volume to be destroyed in the first week of this month of September, 70% correspond to pica mandatory (900,000 kilos), for the remaining 30% voluntary (400,000). With this new signal of withdrawal from the market, the Canary Islands are increasing their pica accumulated in five fateful weeks for farmers, with prices perceived as ruinous for the fruits sold and numerous losses accumulated.
The reward for the local producer, what he receives as income for the fruit sold in the Peninsula in green and in first transaction, has decreased by about 60 cents per kilo since the first weeks of July until last August, which places the prices received by the banana growers of the Canary Islands at thresholds that do not cover the costs, below 0.50 euros per kilo, and, depending on the categories, even at levels that do not cover all the production costs even after adding the direct aid of the Posei program, paid by the European Union (EU), at 0.30 euros per kilo on average. The production cost per kilo varies between 0.70 and 0.80 euros in the Canary Islands. It should be remembered that the destroyed fruit only has as a reward that enters into the calculation of the payment of the direct aid from the EU the aforementioned 0.30 euros per kilo and per year.
The sudden drop in prices received by the local producer has nothing to do, and it is a general complaint of the final consumer, with the photograph taken in the aisles of the large-scale distribution, which offers this same fruit, marketed in green and first transaction in the peninsula at the very low values mentioned above, at retail prices (in yellow, ripe) higher than two euros per kilo in the establishments of the Canary Islands, where six million kilos have already been thrown away, and at levels higher than 2.5 or three euros in the Peninsula, with the banana in many cases, half of this threshold.
The Ministry of Agriculture continues to watch the clouds
Despite this new crisis situation in the Canary Islands banana, after a forgotten year 2023 due to the ruin of all local producers, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Sovereignty of the Government of the Canary Islands, which directs the local Narvay Quintero (from AHI), continues to look at the clouds, even having the maximum support now possible in the agricultural sector of the island, and does not dare to modify the territorial decree that regulates the cultivation of bananas on the islands (the regulation would have to be modified that affect measure II of the Posei program – banana with protected geographical indication, PGI – by Decree 48/2018 of April 16, which regulates the recognition of producer organizations and their associations in the banana sector), which only need to have the approval of the Government Council, according to the recommendations or requests included in the proposal for a non-law (PNL) approved on July 26 by the Agriculture Commission of the Parliament of Canary Islands.
This request has the consensus of all the political parties represented in the Autonomous Chamber and also with the support of the four professional agricultural organizations (OPA): Asaga-Asaja, COAG, UPA and Palca-Unión de Uniones, as well as two of the six banana producer organizations (OPP) existing in the Canary Islands, with almost 50% of the total production marketed from the islands. These OPPs are Coplaca and Agriten.
Councilor Quintero has already spent more than eight months without doing anything in relation to the planned adjustments to the current regulations, since he announced changes to be made before January 2024, and a month and a bit since the approval of the aforementioned PNL, a strategy designed politically and professionally to allow you to apply the solutions described as easily as possible, also with the maximum consensus. For now, nothing has been done by the Ministry of Agriculture, but this Monday the new political course begins. The OPAs do not lose hope.
The cultivation of the dominant fruit on the islands
Bananas are the main export crop of the Canary Islands, after the death, in many sufferings and in stages, of the tomato sent to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. There are about 7,400 banana producers, slightly less if we calculate according to the beneficiaries of the Posei aid (only 6,462 if we consider the list of beneficiaries of the first payment of EU aid in 2023), and about 8,629 hectares are in operation. , according to official data from 2022 recognized by Asprocan.
This crop contributes to the definition of a unique landscape in the five main islands where this fruit is grown mainly for export. Its presence is attested in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, and none in La Graciosa.
All bananas sold in and from the Canary Islands have a guaranteed quality thanks to the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) Platano de Canarias, with part of the supply also covered by the Protected Designation of Origin (DOP) Organic Agriculture.
The banana produced on the islands (in normal years with a production of around 400,000 tonnes/year) receives direct annual aid from the EU with a financial balance of 141.1 million euros which is regulated under the Posei programme, to which is added 20 million a year of state aid for the transport of goods, starting in 2023 and extended this year.
This tropical fruit has almost the only market in the peninsula, in Spain and Portugal, since shipments outside these destinations did not even reach one million kilos in 2022.
Distribution of production between islands and OPPs
Tenerife continues to lead the banana crop in the Canary Islands, with 46.4% of total production in 2023 (50.3% in 2022) and 30 million kilos more in 2023 compared to 2022, ahead of La Palma (29.7%, before 22.1%). , Gran Canaria (22%, before 25.6%), La Gomera (1.1%, before 1.2%) and El Hierro, unchanged and with 0.8%. In 2023, 467 million kilos were sold, a record figure in the islands.
Among the banana producer organizations, the OPP, of which there are six on the islands, the main one is Coplaca (an entity that also participates in Eurobanan, a company that also imports and sells banana in Spain and Portugal, almost exclusive markets of the Canary Islands), with 31.29% of the production marketed and unused in 2023, out of a total of 467 million kilos; followed by Cupalma (17.82%), Europlátano (16.15%), Llanos de Sardina (12.56%), Plátanos de Canarias (11.41%) and Agriten (10.82%).
