Hugo Franco, vice president of the Association of Producers and Exporters of bananas Tembiaporá, stated that, starting next year banana producers from several countries in the region, including those of Paraguay, must meet new export requirements.
In this context, last Wednesday, industry representatives of several countries held a technical tour of the area of Guayaibí, in the department of San Pedro, and visited two model farms in the area that are currently applying good agricultural practices (GAP). The participants were quite enthusiastic about the achievements in production in the GAP farms and with the quality of the products.
They also performed a short tour in production farms in the cities of Itauguá and J. Augusto Saldivar. "There were delegations from Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and some local institutions present in the tour, which was organized by Rediex. The purpose of the visit was for the different countries that currently conduct good agricultural practice at the regional level to exchange experiences," said Franco.
He also stated that, as of 2016, the fruit must have GAP certification to be accepted in international markets, especially in Argentina.
Exports
The Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mario Leon, said that Paraguay only exported bananas to Argentina. He noted that, up to September, Paraguay had exported a total of 25,593 tons to Argentina.
So far this year, June has been the month with the highest export volume, as banana exports totalled 4,068 tons.
According to Leon, there are about 2,000 producers of bananas and about 10,000 hectares devoted to this fruit in Paraguay.
He said they were negotiating to send bananas to Uruguay, but that currently the numbers were too high as exports would have to be shipped by air, which is costly.
Cooperation
In turn, the Deputy Minister of Economic Relations, Rigoberto Gauto, said they were analyzing the possibility of getting technical cooperation from Ecuador in terms of training for banana export packaging. "Ecuador is one of the largest producers and exporters of bananas in the world and we want to learn some of the techniques and management used by that country," he said.
He added that Paraguay had increased the quality of its banana production because of climate factors in recent years, as there had been little frost in the winter.
