Banana prices in Belize are anticipated to rise somewhat. The Ministry of Agriculture claims that this price increase is the result of higher production costs brought on by a scarcity of fertilizer. Farmers around the nation, particularly in the South, have struggled to locate reasonable supplies of fertilizer. As a result, production has decreased and costs have increased as a result of the unjustified expense of hiring additional labor. Servulo Baeza, the CEO of the Ministry of Agriculture, reveals that the Ministry has already started to take action to lessen these pressures on the farmers.
Servulo Baeza, CEO, Ministry of Agriculture said: “If the cost of producing and the cost of bringing the product to the market goes up then obviously I mean nobody will do something for a loss so those people who do that for a living certainly have to pass on that to the consumers. The banana industry as a whole is in a very precarious position right now. The cost of production has really gone up. Fertilizer is one of the main components along with one of the things that you’re also saying is the increase in hourly wage for the workers going up to $5 so those two things have really compounded and increase the cost of production for bananas.
"Bananas use a lot of fertilizer I mean unlike sugar cane they use two sacks of fertilizer per acre every month and so when you have a cost of fertilizer going up by over 100% I mean that’s a huge increase in the cost. So one of the things we have done, headed by my minister the Honorable Jose Abelardo Mai we had asked the American government for some fertilizer, they had offered some fertilizer and so initially we have arranged to get some fertilizer for the sugar industry. We went recently to visit the American ambassador because we wanted to ask for additional help, additional help both for the citrus and for the banana industry. So we have asked them we have formally requested that assistance the American government is looking at it and it would seem that it might be favorable. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks and so on we should be getting a favorable response from them.”
Source: LoveFM