Colombia's banana exports rise but revenue fall in 2021

BOGOTA, Apr 25 (Reuters): Colombia's banana exports rose 1.83 per cent in 2021 to 111 million 20-kilogram boxes, though their value fell 1.98 per cent to $898 million due to lower international prices, the country's association of banana growers said on Friday.
The Andean country exported 109 million 20-kg boxes in 2020, worth a value of $916.2 million, according to the association.
"Generally speaking 2021 was a complicated year," Emerson Aguirre, the association's president, said during the group's annual assembly in Medellin.
The value of the exported crop did not rise because suppliers did not pay "dignified" prices, Aguirre said, adding that the association had stressed the importance of shared burdens across the entire supply chain.
The association faced difficulties in 2021, including an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that pushed the prices of primary materials upward, supply chain issues and the presence of a fungus which attacks banana plants.
Bananas are the third most-important agricultural export in Colombia, behind coffee and flowers.
In 2021 the free on-board (FOB) price of Colombian bananas averaged $8 per 20-kg box, down from $8.15 per box in 2020, the association added.
In 2019, Colombia detected fungus fusarium tropical type 4, which causes the so-called Panama disease, or wilt, that attacks the roots of the Cavendish banana variety in the northern La Guajira province, where 190 hectares (470 acres) of the fruit were eradicated.
Colombia is the world's fifth-largest exporter of the yellow fruit after Ecuador, the Philippines, Guatemala and Costa Rica. At the end of 2021, the country had 52,270 hectares planted with bananas, 816 more than the previous year.