25th October 2011
Saving the St. Lucia Banana Export Trade
Peter L. Serieux,
Managing Director, Tropical Quality Fruit Company Ltd

The average St. Lucian, infected by petit bourgeois mentality, looks with scorn at the banana farmer and his lingering problems and sees most industry woes as self-inflicted but you cannot blame the average St. Lucian who is a victim of education and conditioning he/she did not choose.
Let us not think of the St. Lucia banana export trade in isolation. Bearing in mind that no other agricultural crop to replace bananas is in the making and agriculture remains the bedrock of St. Lucia’s economy (though not the highest revenue earner), we should stop and think of the current banana export trade’s impact on the agricultural sector. Follow up that thought with another on the importance of agriculture to rural economies and the usual negative impact of declining rural economies on national security. Then evaluate national security in terms of the social and economic well-being of every St. Lucian.

Banana Growing Regions
Banana plants can be found growing almost anywhere in St. Lucia but, using commonly known constituencies as a guide, serious banana growing areas are found in Babonneau, Anse La Raye, Castries South-East, Dennery North, Dennery South, Micoud North, Micoud South, and Vieux Fort North.
About 1250 registered banana farmers operating in the above-mentioned areas could be contributing an average of about $50M annually to St. Lucia’s agricultural export earnings (based on 2010 production and export statistics).
The direct distribution of this banana export revenue would be as follows:
- To packaging material supplies 18.74% ~ $9.4M
- To farm input supplies 10.90% ~ $5.5M
- To control of Sigatoka disease 4.11% ~ $2.1M
- To crop insurance 3.41% ~$1.7M
- To Producer Company Services 5.66% ~ $2.8M
- In- Trust for Producer Company Members’ social
and business development (Fairtrade Premium) 6.37% ~ $3.2M
-To banana farmers 50.81% ~ $25.5M
Notice that just over half of banana export earnings goes to producing farmers from which farm labour cost is met, and the rest as disposable income.
The above exercise assumes a yield per acre of 10 tonnes. From that level of productivity, net return or payment to the farmer will vary as productivity changes.

Current Problems
The fact that our current banana farmers are still in the industry is evidence of their resilience. The standards they must attain and maintain to keep exporting to traditional buyers in the United Kingdom, are sometimes trying and tedious but they take pride in being internationally recognized.
Recurring problems stemming from vulnerability to adverse weather conditions are faced by banana farmers the world over but the difficulty for St. Lucia lies in the apparent demise of the industry in St. Vincent and Dominica. It would be difficult to retain the confidence of our traditional buyers in a case of back-to-back losses from force majeure if we stand alone but success comes from planning for life, not death.
The current spread of the Black Sigatoka disease is a serious problem to be urgently surmounted. Farmers’ difficulties in selling their post- Tomas harvest enable us to see how the presence of plants with overgrade fruit hastens the spread of the disease. The rate at which it has come over the industry within the last five months, has made farmers see that control practices cannot be taken lightly.
Proper organization, co-operation and management remain the industry’s most critical problems. We continue to make improper or insufficient use of limited resources and duplicate functions. Too often, we fail in our responsibility to recognize clear jurisdictions essential to farmers’ maintenance of product quality and farm standard because they do not suit a selfserving purpose.
The practices essential to the production of a good quality banana for export are known by every certified farmer, yet he falls short of expectations because he is too often left confused.