Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

336 Les productions bananières / Bananas and food security – Session 2
tons
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997
years
Chiapas Michoacán Veracruz
Tabasco Colima National
Figure 3. Banana and plantain production at a national level 1990-1996.
market. In both cases, the price is established and negotiated when the product is
delivered, and the producer pays transportation and packing costs. They also sell directly
to supermarkets.
Small-scale producers produced a low volume of fruits which cannot be sold directly
at the national supplying market, but to intermediaries or collectors, who buy the fruit at
the plantations, pack it there and later sell it on supplying markets. This type of
marketing is the most common in the Central Pacific region of Mexico; the producer
receives the lowest price for his fruit.
The main supplying markets are situated in the Federal District, Guadalajara,
Monterrey, Hermosillo, Torreón, Sinaloa and Aguascalientes; the product is bought by a
group of merchants called “medium wholesalers”, who distribute it to the smaller towns,
where they possess or rent warehouses. There, “retailers” buy the product and sell it to
the consumer at public markets, moving markets and other places.
Other