June 6, 2007

Farmers feeding pigs bananas in China's Hainan as prices crash

Falling prices for bananas have prompted farmers to use the fruit as animal feed in China's Hainan Province.

Farmers said they would rather feed it to pigs than let it rot in the fields.

The tropical fruit used to be very much in demand, especially with businessmen from Beijing and Shanghai.

While prices last year were at RMB 3/kg, this year, it has fallen to just RMB 0.26/kg due to lack of buyers.

The main cause of the banana glut is over-supply. According to the Hainan Provincial Bureau of Agriculture, 50,000 hectares of banana trees were planted across Hainan Island this year.

Hainan has exported 490,000 tonnes of bananas to other provinces since early April, a rise of 210,000 tonnes over the same period last year.

The island produces one sixth China's banana output.

Widely circulated rumours that bananas produced in Hainan might be unsafe because of the use of chemical agents in processing and that there was a risk they might spread the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus also depressed sales. 

Meng Xuru, director of the Hainan Provincial office for the development of South Asian tropical crops, said the text messaging rumour, rampant in the Mainland, dealt a severe blow to Hainan's bananas, especially in April, which happened to be harvest season.