Yesterday, the Union of Banana Growers Associations from Chapare (Unabana) received a certification that their product was free of pests and met all the conditions for export. Unabana is looking to export their bananas to the Brazilian market.
The secretary of Unabana's Production Development, Pedro Padilla, said the certification had been granted based on a pest risk analysis (PRA).
The president of Unabana, Juan Sevilla, stated that about 380 families of four municipalities in the Cochabamba tropics that were engaged in the production of bananas had the capacity to export up to 30,000 boxes of the product to Brazil each week.
Sevilla added that, in recent months, efforts had been made with buyers from the regions of Mato Grosso do Sul and Campo Grande, among others, which were interested in buying their bananas.
"Brazil's production area is far north and it is very expensive to move the fruit to the south. We are only 18 hours away from these markets while they are at least 24 hours away," he said.
According to Roman, the bananas produced in the tropics have already been ranked second in Argentina, so the sector requires extension to other international markets.
Currently, Unabana has 12,000 hectares of production for export and 8,000 hectares devoted to domestic consumption.
