Plátano de Canarias exceeds 23 million kilos its marketing average of the last six years

Plátano de Canarias maintains its historical marketing figures for 2016, with a total of 255 million kilograms sold in August 2017 in the Peninsula, 23 million kilos above the average of the last six years. These sales are very close to those reached in the same period of 2016, with 259 million kilos.

The year 2017 began for Plantain of the Canary Islands with a decrease of the production that had expected a year with less productive intensity. In February, the volume sold was already 5.5 million kilograms lower than in the same month of 2016. However, since then the banana marketing figures have been increasing, reaching the same levels and even exceeding in several weeks the figures for 2016, to maintain the differential at 4.5 million at the end of August.

The most likely scenario for this year 2017 is to maintain a level of commercialization very similar to 2016, and thus very close to reaching the historical record of more than 381 million kilograms sold in the Peninsula, which add to the near 36 million kilograms marketed in the Canary Islands.

Maintaining minimum profitability levels while maintaining record production levels above 430 million kilograms per year is a real challenge for the sector, which represents more than 65% of European banana production

In this sense, the regional sectoral organization, through the Association of Canarian Plantain Producers (ASPROCAN), has allowed to sustain the activity of the sector in the medium and long term.

According to Domingo Martín Ortega, president of ASPROCAN, “the fruit market in Spain has experienced a summer of strong crisis of prices for farmers and a clear example of this are the levels of withdrawal from the market that have had fruits of bone such as nectarine and peaches that reached the maximum withdrawal quota established in a single day and for which the European Commission has extended to 20 million kilos such withdrawal quota in recognition of the necessity and effectiveness of this mechanism. Even the main national agrarian organizations have demanded a new increase of these stops up to 40 million kilos for this year. The withdrawal from the market is a last resort that hurts to adopt all producers without exception, but it is a regulated and habitual mechanism in the agrarian economy. It is necessary to leave complexes that only cost the ruin of the producers and to be clear that thanks to the current organization of the banana sector, the plantain of the Canary Islands is far from the situation that unfortunately pass through other fruits in our market.

In the case of Plátano de Canarias, it is expected that the application of the withdrawal mechanism, intended to avoid the economic losses of producers, will affect less than 3% of the total produced in the year

A level that is clearly below the 5% market cap quotas established and regulated by the European Union as a necessary mechanism for crisis management and stabilization of agricultural markets.

A major concern for the sector is the retail price, which is undoubtedly an obstacle to the commercial viability of the total production of Plátano de Canarias

According to ASPROCAN’s weekly chain of sales channels throughout Spain, the average retail sales price for large distributors in 2017 has been steady at € 1.93 / kg, increasing by 7% compared to 2016 and 10% compared to 2015.

This growth in the PVP is artificial in that it does not correspond to the evolution of sales prices at origin and jeopardizes the commercial sustainability of Canarian production as it unjustifiably increases the price differential with respect to bananas from third countries.

The sector understands that the productive and commercial viability of bananas requires focusing on a greater collaboration of the points of sale in order to maintain reasonable margins for both Canarian producers and consumers

Source: Association of Canarian Plantain Producers

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