When the price of banana is high, consumers have an alternative to replace this food: green bananascassava, sweet potato and even bread.
The banana It has the particularity that it can be consumed at any time of the day, further complicating its scarcity in times like the present, where the production is low in a country where an average consumer ingests an average of 250 bananas year.
“The last time I ate bananas It was because they were given to me. I don’t give 25 pesos for a banana,” said housewife Josefa, a resident of the Los Praditos sector of the National District.
Consider that the bananas that they are selling are “bad class, little ones and watery.” “That’s not a banana,” he says.
In the Dominican Republic it is estimated that they live 11 million people. According to data from the Dominican Agribusiness Board, the country consumes about 7 million bananas daily.
A citizen identified as Luisa López told Free Daily than the last time you applied bananas to the grocery store they were 35 pesos.
“I don’t give more than 25 pesos for a banana. I’m buying them in the supermarket, they are a little bigger. If I can’t find it in the supermarket, well, I don’t buy it, I prefer to buy guineítos and not give 35 pesos for a small and bad one, ”he said.
One of the alternatives most used by consumers is to buy green bananas (banana). On a tour conducted by Free Daily It was verified that the prices of this product are around between 8 and 10 pesos.
“The buses that bring the bananas from the fields they sell them at 6 and 7 pesos”, indicated the colmadera Mary Rosario.
Rosario said that they have decided not to buy or bananas nor bananas because the consumers they are not accepting the prices and the products are ripening and damaged.
“One puts the products in those boxes and, when they begin to ripen, you have to throw away part of the goodsand that’s not business,” he said.
The supermarkets of the National District they sell the pound of green bananas between 16 and 18 pesos, according to what was observed in the tour made by Free Daily.
According to data from Department of agriculture, in the Dominican Republic there are 640,000 tasks planted or dedicated to the cultivation of bananas. 50% of the production is organic.
“We continue to export around 400 weekly containers of organic banana. We are the main exporter of organic bananas in the world and we continue working to maintain that level of exports,” said the Vice Minister of Production and Marketing of the Ministry of Agriculture, Eulalio Ramírez.
He assured that they also plan to continue strengthening and incorporating new areas of organic banana.
“Azua, apart from the northwest lineIt is an area in which we plan to strengthen organic banana plantations, and for that we have a whole program of assistance and support for producers in that direction,” he said.
official statistics
The statistics of the Department of agriculture indicate that during 2022 the following were planted in a consolidated manner:
- 73,293 banana tasks
- 365,814 tasks of bananas
In addition, 481,316 tasks of guinea and 780,474 tasks of bananas.
