Eustace questions Government’s committment to banana industry

Not enough is being done to rejuvenate the banana industry.This is the view expressed by Leader of the Opposition Arnhim Eustace on the present state of the banana industry.{{more}}

He further said the government was not interested in the banana industry.

Eustace, speaking on the New Times Radio programme yesterday, said his opinions are based on the present condition of industry.

He further said there was no meaningful proposition to take the industry forward this year.

“Last year we only exported 1,111 tonnes of bananas,” Eustace said, adding that generated $1.5 million.This was far from the days when this country exported over 1,000 tonnes of bananas, Eustace said.

He added that even after market changes, exports were still as high as 60,000 tonnes a year.

“Now we [are] doing $1.5 million a year?”

He noted that this country has been exporting bananas for over 50 years and that Vincentian farmers are experts.

“There may have been a few lapses every now and then, but we wouldn’t have been involved in it for that long if there were problems; we must have been doing something right,” Eustace contended.

He acknowledged that Black Sigatoka is a problem, but said the government did nothing to help farmers control the disease and there was nothing in the budget to continue doing so.

“What is worse is that there is no project in the budget to effectively replant bananas. There is nothing in the capital budget to address this and when I brought this up [during the Budget Debate late week], the prime minister showing me something in the recurring budget … Who is he trying to fool?” Eustace said.

“They say they want to do 30 or 40,000 tonnes, but I am saying that it is impossible,” he continued.

But this was one of the areas where the country could have made a comeback, but the government was not interested, Eustace further said.

“But I am very concerned. Something has to be done to revive bananas,” he said.

“You mean to tell me in this entire crisis here that we could not have one capital project? No farmer support?

“Farmers need money and nothing is being done and the budget is past and gone,” he said, adding that it was not known what the farmers were looking forward to.

This year is going to be another year of negative growth and the farmers were going to struggle, Eustace said.

“It is really ridiculous. Farmers need income support. We need to try and reduce cost to them and we need some grant funding in the form of loans — we need to be able to bring back bananas this year, we can’t bring 30 or 40,000 tonnes this year,” Eustace said. (DD)