Small farmers from San Lorenzo Valley are at a crossroads because they are selling their mango production at ridiculously low prices.
The president of the Board of Users of this valley, David Cruz Cordova said this situation had arisen because employers were arranging fruit prices, to the detriment of agricultural producers.
"Right now, the mango sector is going through an unfortunate situation. Producers are getting between 16 and 17 soles for a box of mangoes and that's not enough to compensate production costs. We hope this situation will improve in coming days," said the leader.
He said the San Lorenzo Valley had 20,000 hectares devoted to mango crops and 30,000 hectares devoted to other products, such as organic bananas, avocados, and grapes.
However, he insisted, companies were lowering the fruit's price. As such, he demanded the intervention of Indecopi (National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property) and the Association of Mango Producers Exporters (APEM), to curb price fixing.
David Cruz said that, currently the valley's fruit production had not exceeded 25% and that, by the end of the season, the farmers would be broke. He stressed that a box of mangoes should cost US $20.
He also said they were producing between 40,000 and 50,000 tons (MT) per year and when they should be producing 150,000 to 160,000 MT. However, he said, they continued to export 100% of the mango production.
Moreover, he stated that farmers continued to market their fruit to intermediaries because the factories didn't pay them on time.
The leader said that if they were not paid what they were owed in the near future, they would be forced to take action. He said that mangoes were not being bought at their actual value, which hurt them economically as they made no profits.
