The southern zone of the Argentine Agrarian Federation, located in Laguna Naineck, 150 kilometers northeast of this city, at the heart of the productive region, will give away 5,000 kilos of bananas as a protest to draw the attention of the authorities to the claims of the sector.
The producers plan to give away their product at four strategic points in the capital, including in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Production and of the local delegation of the Secretariat of Family Agriculture of the Nation, as well as in the Nanqom neighborhood, 10 kilometers away from the city, which is inhabited by aborigines.
The head of the entity, Panfilo Ayala, stated that they were protesting the lack of regulations on foreign banana imports at the time of the local banana harvest, requesting the public purchase to fix a reference price and the declaration of an emergency that doesn't include the crop.
The leader spoke about the losses suffered this year by banana producers because of the lack of marketing and the low price.
Due to the seasonal production, Ayala said, they were able to sell one million boxes that would be transported in 1000 trucks. However, due to the aforementioned reasons and the bad climatic conditions that accelerated the maturation of the fruits, producers could only place 350 thousand boxes.
He said that if the marketing of this product wasn't formalized soon, the fruit would mature in the farms and they would once again lose their harvest, which is why the sector is asking for urgent responses so that sales can take place and, above all, at good values.
In that sense, there are complaints about the attitude of opportunists who are buying the 25-kg box at 25 pesos and selling them at the capital market at 180 pesos.
They are charging $ 1.50 per kilo produced when they should receive $ 3.50 to cover costs. The head of the FAA called for the State to have a thorough look at the villages in the interior, where there are about a thousand families living on banana production and marketing.
