President Juan Carlos Varela recently visited the banana fincas just north of Puerto Armuelles, to see the new little bananas ripening on the plants. They take about one month to mature, so in February, Del Monte is expected to export the first shipments of bananas from Puerto Armuelles!
The reactivation of the banana industry in Puerto Armuelles (Baru) has been a long time coming. Finally, we are seeing progress being made. Varela inspected crops of the Jobito farm, accompanied by the executives of the Banapiña company and state ministers. In 5 years the farms (currently 900 hectares) will reach 5,000 hectares of banana plants in Puerto Armuelles , generating about 3100 new direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs. The company is estimated to invest more than 100 million dollars into Puerto’s economy over a period of seven years.
Banapiña (a subsidiary of Del Monte) has sublease contracts with more than 1,600 farms for the banana reactivation in Barú, which exceeds 13 million dollars. Farms in Renacimiento and Jobito (near La Esperanza) will be the first to have production and export of fruit.
The president also toured the construction area of a banana packing plant that will be used for the export process and could provide jobs for many of the local women in the area, as it did with Chiquita in the past.
See a video of Varela’s visit HERE
Read more about Del Monte in Puerto Armuelles:
Uphill Road to Approval of Contract
Preparing the Fields for Production
Cover photo courtesy of ‘entorno inteligente’
