Saint Lucia’s Agriculture Ministry has bought 17,000 banana and plantain boxes from the Dominican Republic to alleviate a shortage that has negatively impacted local farmers.<\/p>\n
The shortage has contributed to wasted crops.<\/p>\n
The shipment of boxes was due here this week, but there was a delay.<\/p>\n
Agriculture Minister Alfred Prospere disclosed that the items left the Dominican Republic en route to Jamaica last Saturday.<\/p>\n
However, Prospere said the boxes remained in Jamaica on Monday, while the ship was due to arrive here the next day.<\/p>\n
Saint Lucia has since learned that the boxes left in Jamaica will leave on Saturday and arrive here next Thursday.<\/p>\n
Given the situation, the Ministry of Agriculture has ordered 12,000 boxes from the United States.<\/p>\n
The Ministry hopes that the shipment will arrive by Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
“This situation is very painful for me as the Minister for Agriculture,” Prospere lamented.<\/p>\n
He described it as a severe disruption of the banana and plantain sector.<\/p>\n
He noted that the banana box issue had arisen while banana and plantain farmers enjoyed surplus production after Tropical Storm Bret devastated their crops in June last year.<\/p>\n
The banana box shortage occurred after Windward Islands Packaging Company Ltd (WINERA), which produces the items, experienced a breakdown of its 50-year-old machine.<\/p>\n
The company ordered a replacement from China, and installation is underway.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the Agriculture Minister disclosed that even with the installation of the replacement, the materials needed for production are unavailable.<\/p>\n
Prosper was hopeful that if all went well, farmers could resume harvesting and generate an income by next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saint Lucia’s Agriculture Ministry has bought 17,000 banana and plantain boxes from the Dominican Republic to alleviate a shortage that has negatively impacted local farmers. The shortage has contributed to wasted crops. The shipment of boxes was due here this week, but there was a delay. Agriculture Minister Alfred Prospere disclosed that the items left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":16371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Saint Lucia Awaiting Banana Box Imports To Alleviate Shortage","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n