Global export quantities of bananas fell by 1.2 million tonnes in 2022, to come in at 19.1 million tonnes for the year, new data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has found.
'Amid a difficult global operating environment, obstacles to global banana trade were mainly present on the supply side, with demand in importing countries remaining relatively strong,' the FAO said in its Banana Market Review 2022.
Factors Affecting Trade
Some of the key factors affecting trade prospects last year included production shortages caused by adverse weather conditions, 'substantially higher' input and global transportation costs in the first half of the year, and the 'significant appreciation' of the US dollar.
Elsewhere, concerns surrounding the spread of particular diseases – in particular Banana Fusarium Wilt Tropical Race 4 - and more stringent limitations on maximum residue levels in some major markets also affected fruit quantities to some degree.
'As demand remained firm in the majority of the leading import markets, notably in the European Union and the United States of America, prices in these markets accordingly displayed a tendency to increase,' the FAO added.
Producer Prices
At the same time, however, producer prices remained 'stagnant' at very low levels, the FAO said, which was due to a number of factors, including competition in the value chain, quality issues on some producer countries, and market saturation during the early months of the war in Ukraine.
The biggest drop in export unit values last year was seen in Côte d'Ivoire, which saw a 9.6% drop, followed by Nicaragua, with a 3.8% drop. The biggest increase was seen in Guatemala, where export unit values rose by 5.4%.
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