The damages caused by the recent tropical storms in Honduras have forced the country's banana sector to temporarily suspend exports, stated Julio Morales, Agribusiness Coordinator at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (SAG).
“We can't continue to export bananas because the crops were badly affected by Eta and Iota. In addition, the storms also damaged the access roads to many plantations,” stated Morales. It will take the banana sector approximately a year to recover, as many of the plantations were devastated by the floods and must be rebuilt, he said.
The damage to the infrastructures in the producing areas prevented extracting a large part of the production. As a result, many producers completely lost all of their production.
The economic losses are incalculable as most of the bananas produced in the departments of Yoro, Colon, and Cortes are destined for export. "The banana for export has to have the best quality. If it suffers any physical damage, it can no longer be exported. The process to export them has to be precise, for example, in their ripening," he said.
The banana is Honduras' second most important export product.
Source: hondudiario.com