Page 38 - Ecuador's Banana Sector under Climate Change

ecuador’s banana sector under climate change: an economic and biophysical assessment to promote a sustainable and climate-compatible strategy
labour. Given that the estimated total area under banana cultivation was slightly over 165 000 ha in 2012, the direct and indirect labour force working on banana plantations is approximately 250 000 workers.
There are two types of banana production systems in Ecuador: organic and conventional. Organic farms neither use synthetic chemicals for fertilizers nor pesticides. They use natural plant extracts, manure or other approved products for organic production. Organic farms also apply different fertilizer formulas than do conventional farms. Table 4 shows data relating to the use of fertilizer and pesticides for a sample of organic and conventional farms, which were collected in Ecuador as part of a life-cycle analysis (FAO, 2014).
In general, organic farms use fewer inputs for fertilization and pest control. All fertilizer inputs are from natural sources, including compost, lime, mineral potassium sulphate, poultry manure and phosphate rocks as sources. For pesticides, plant extracts, such as Timorex Gold and other approved products, are used. Average banana yields on organic plantations are lower (33 versus 39.9 metric tonnes (MT)/ha), but not significantly as previously reported in literature.
3.1.2 Cost of production
The cost of banana production per ha varies, depending on the farm size and yield level; the technologies used; and levels of inputs. Table 5 provides a detailed cost of production relating to conventionally grown bananas on small, medium and large farms.
What is significant from these details is the high share of labour in total cost. Labour accounted for 48.5 percent of the total cost of production for small farms, compared to 44.6 percent for medium farms and 40.2 percent for large farms. These high shares demonstrate the labour-intensive nature of banana production and why maintaining lower labour wages has defined much of the tumultuous relationships between MNCs and workers’ unions, national governments and NGOs.
The second largest cost category in the production of bananas is agrochemicals. This reflects the close dependence of banana management on large applications of fertilizers and pesticides to shore up soil fertility and fight disease. Pesticide expenditures, alone, range from15 to 20 percent of total
cost and are higher for small-scale producers who cannot use aerial spraying and need to rely on more costly manual applications.3 Fertilizer expenditures increase with farm size, from 4.9 percent for small farms to 9.5 percent for large plantations, reflecting a higher nutrient replacement given the higher average fruit harvest per ha.
The number of chemical sprayings is linked to the length of the rainy season. Ecuador has four months of rain per annum compared to ten months in Costa Rica. Consequently, the number of sprayings against BS in Ecuador is less (averaging 20 chemical sprayings per annum) than in Costa Rica (averaging between 50 and 70 chemical sprayings per annum) (Chambron, 2000).
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