Sant Pere Sula.
The covid-19 pandemic and both hurricanes Eta and Iota they leave the agricultural and livestock sector immersed in the crisis most dramatic in the last 20 years and at the risk of losing ground in the international market due to breach of contract.
From bean growers, who achieved one of the best harvests, to palm oil exporters, who are now selling at better prices, they received strong goals and are now about to close the year with irreparable losses. This year “has been a catastrophe for the agricultural sector, especially for the northern area,” he said Edgardo Leiva, executive director of Honduran Association of Milk Producers (Aproleche).
“In the Sula valley a catastrophe has befallen producers of milk, beef and pork. There are companies and small producers who have lost everything. This has an unprecedented magnitude. They failed to save anything, “he said in a telephone interview with Daily THE PRESS.
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13,000 metric tons Citrus growers stopped harvesting due to the November rains. |
According to Leiva, the producers of milk and meat, both bovine and porcine, are of the criterion that for “lifting the productive units” of the entire agricultural and packaging sector of the country is necessary “extra support” for 2021, but “It is not just about financial support, but international support for the government, because after the crisis left by the covid-19 it is difficult for the government to offer a solution to the problems of Eta y Iota”.
A month after the devastation caused by Eta and Iota, the Secretariat of Agriculture and Livestock (SAG) has not yet been able to quantify the years across the sector, due to the great destruction in plantations that, even now, many of them are flooded.
By the end of last month, in a preliminary manner, it is secretariat, for example, recorded 7,971 banana apples lost, 13,000 citrus apples, 5,566 rice and more than 150,000 oil palm flooded.
Hector Castro, president of the Industrial Association of Oil Producers of Honduras (Aipah), considers that “despite the pandemic, 2020 was not a bad year for the oil palm because prices in the international market have recovered, they are around $ 900”.
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7,971 lost banana apples, according to the count of the Ministry of Agriculture until the end of November. |
Unfortunately, Castro thinks, the producers of this important sector cannot take advantage of the rise in prices “because most, mainly those of the Sula valley, they are not harvesting because more than 17,000 hectares of palm plantations have been lost. “
“It simply came to our notice then. The palm ends last year with a final crisis like the whole agricultural sector of the Sula valley because two months without harvesting represent 15% of the total production of a year. Added to that, there is no infrastructure. The producers are entering the field to do cleaning, but they cannot take out the fruit, there is still water in the secondary and tertiary roads ”, said.
“We have no hope that this will recover Government in a short time. The situation is really worrying, you have to have a lot of stoicism to be able to face this. “
The adverse situation facing oilers, which translates into a reduction in exports and breach of contract with their buyers, puts producers in check on the international market rises colleagues in neighboring countries are fulfilling the space that, per Eta y Iota, will leave the last months of 2020 and early 2021.
“It simply came to our notice then. It is very similar. There are contracts. The buyer of United States o Europe firm contract with suppliers, with us sellers. Contracts have non-compliance clauses. For non-compliance, we are first penalized even though we argue that they are the cause of force majeure, and then the buyer will go for other supplements. What’s going on? It’s all about the cost of the emergency purchase that charges us, ”he said. “We are not selling and we are suffering penalties,” he said.
Castro believes that “he Government it has no plan, the ministers are reacting on their own criteria, they do not have a strategic or economic vision to execute a plan, the situation is very serious, the whole productive structure has collapsed ”.
The last two hurricanes it also ended up destabilizing farmers of non-traditional products who, in the midst of coronavirus-derived restrictions, dodged barriers to keeping them within markets where there is a reduction in consumption.
Despite the covid-19, seconds Medardo Galindo, manager of the Federation of Agro-Exporters of Honduras (FPX), “until the middle of the year all exports were within normal, but came the hurricanes which caused a drop in products such as bananas, oil palm, livestock and non-traditional products.”
“For example, before the hurricanes we exported about 500 contingents a week of okra, now, maybe 200, exports have been reduced by 50% in the last two months. In non-traditional products we had yours that when the pandemic came, you are already highlighting the export season, with a little more than half, not much affected. Now, the sowing is being done normally and we hope that at the end of December and the beginning of January we will start the export season again “, Galindo will say.
The FPX estimates that by the end of 2020 the non-traditional sector would have sent to the international market around 35,000 containers of bananas, fruits and vegetables, an amount similar to last year.
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35,195 sugar cane apples affected, ie flooded, not destroyed during hurricanes. |
“Products such as okra, tilapia fillet, vegetables, which are highly perishable and are exported by air, have been affected by the closure of the Ramón Villeda Morales airport which is where they usually go. To export, Golosón it is very expensive.
Some of the producers are choosing to export through Comalapa, El Salvador, which is also expensive. We, through the Federation, are requesting the Government that enables some facilities in Palmerola at least to export as soon as possible “, he will say.
According to Galindo, it is urgent to enable Palmerola for exports because tilapia steak producers ship around 600,000 kilos a week, while oriental vegetable producers are about 400,000 kilos, 70% in the United States and 30% in Europe.
“We have to look at ourselves from the perspective of competitiveness compared to other countries that export it. Guatemala and Costa Rica have continued and are exporting. It seems to them that there was no pandemic or hurricane. They export up to two and three times more than Honduras, “he warned.
“We are becoming more competitive than we are. He Government you have to see that because they can take us out of the market. ”
In the basic grain sector the consequences of the covid-19 and of Eta y Iota they have not been of catastrophic dimensions, however, the production of beans that would come out at the end of this year will be drastically reduced by the abundance of rains.
“In 2020, domestic corn production achieved a fairly good yield, unfortunately, we do not have the market to market the existing national supply. The mass planting of first-class beans allowed there to still be a national supply. By Eta y Iota, the last sowing was lost by 85%. We only have 15% domestic production.
We have a deficit, but the Government is launching a campaign called Postrera of late sowing to meet national demand, “said Dulio Medina, president of the National Association of Farmers and Producers of Basic Grain of Honduras (Prograno).
Medina said corn growers are not experiencing difficulties Eta y Iota, but for “marketing reasons” that are related to the market and the free trade agreement with the United States.
“We were only able to place 1,360,000 quintals of corn out of 8,000,000 quintals that we produced in the three cycles. That leaves us with red numbers. We already have the presence of the free trade agreement and the balanced products industry we no longer buy domestic production to make concentrates, but import.
They said they were going to accompany national production, but the problem is that we offer too low a price, ”he said.