Packaging Facilities Will See Far Fewer Bananas Coming in Due to Flooding Damages.

The constant rain that has been battering the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica for the past week has affected over 10,000 hectares of bananas, one of Costa Rica’s largest exports. The rains had arrived due to a cold front that sat on the Central American Caribbean Coast for about 5 days, affecting Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The Pacific side of Costa Rica was not affected and today the country is enjoying blue skies and sunshine.

It is estimated that the loss of 10,000 hectares of bananas is valued at around $30.8 million, and many plantation workers have not been able to work for over a month now. It was originally estimated that the loss would be close to $21 million however after a closer inspection many more hectares were considered to be destroyed, most matted flat to the ground with water and mud.

This is not good news for the many large banana companies in Costa Rica such as Del Monte and Chiquita. The equivalent of 4.3 million 18 kilo boxes of bananas will not circulate this season due to the inclement Costa Rica Weather. With markets worldwide on the slowdown how are those traders going to be able to get the potassium they need to get through the day?

Costa Rica’s coffee producers have also been hurt by the bad weather and a fungus outbreak, however no numbers are confirmed yet on their losses. The Costa Rican Institute of Agricultural Development stated that a total of over 1,350 hectares of crops (corn, bananas, plantains, rice, etc.) have been damaged this season.

To try to offset these losses and get farm owners and workers back on their feet, the National Banana Cooperation (Corbana) will be tapping into their emergency funds to offer loans with 6% interest. This morning the French Government also promised $100,000 in aid to Costa Rica and other countries are stepping up to help out.

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Filed under: Business on December 4th, 2008