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Jamaica's banana future looks bleak |
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4 November 2008, jamaica-gleaner.com
Prime Minister Bruce Golding painted a bleak picture of the future of the banana industry last Tuesday, during a sitting of the House of Representatives. "What we need to do is to move with the land resources we have, the infrastructure that is there to see how we can diversify," Golding told the House. Already, the chief producers of banana for export have pulled out of production. The straw that broke the camel's back was Tropical Storm Gustav, which destroyed a vast percentage of banana crops in eastern Jamaica.
Jamaica Producers, in announcing the end of its participation in banana
export, cited massive losses as a result of several hurricanes in the
last four years. The company said it would now concentrate on growing
crops such as cassava and breadfruit. Golding said small farmers may
still feel the need to remain in bananas but has advised against it.
"While we don't prevent people from entering upon any kind of
enterprise that they want, we have to tell them in clear, unemotional
terms that the banana situation is moving against us. It is now like
swimming against the tide," Golding said.
Better quality life
"What we want to do is to secure an orderly disengagement, but a new
engagement into something possible and that can offer a better quality
of life for the farmers that are involved," he added. Caribbean and
other countries in the 77-nation African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)
group are fighting to have its bananas enter European markets at a
preferential rate.
Under a regime that came into effect two and a half years ago, the ACP
group of countries can export up to 775,000 tonnes of bananas annual to
the EU duty-free. Other exporters have to pay a tariff of €176 a tonne.
However, a WTO dispute panel this year, on a complaint by Ecuador,
ruled that the EU quota tariff was unfair and incompatible with its
regime.
Import tariffs
The EU has said it would accept a WTO proposal for the European trade
bloc to reduce banana import tariffs from €176 per tonne to €116 by
year 2015. However, according to Golding, banana producers here would
still not be able to compete even with that protection.
"We have been buying time but we are not going to be able to sustain
those challenges indefinitely. The €176 per tonne is not going to
last," the Prime Minister said. Golding told the House that leaving
banana should not become a political issue.
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