Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

Amérique Latine - Caraïbes / Latin America - Caribbean : J. Orozco Romero
tons/ha
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Source: SAGAR
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997
Marketing at the national level
years
Chiapas Michoacán Veracruz
Tabasco Colima National
Figure 2. National average of banana and plantain yields 1990-1997 (tons/ha).
The national marketing channels are not very homogeneous in the whole country, but in
most places they follow the chain Producer-Packer-Wholesaler-Retailer and Consumer.
It is to be noted that there are different marketing channels and that the difference
lies in the type of producer (Figure 4).
Large-scale producers have integrated marketing process, packing stations,
transport and warehouses in the main supplying markets of the country, furthermore,
they are also wholesalers and buy the fruit from small producers, offering packing and
transportation to supply the market demand. This is the most common marketing
channel, and it is estimated that 65% of the fruit volumes follows this mechanism.
Medium-scale producers do not have warehouses, they sell their products to
intermediaries, who have warehouses at supplying markets without being producers but
dispute the market with large producers. This transaction is performed in two ways: 1)
delivering the fruit to an established warehouse and 2) entering in the auction sales
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