Another Blow For Bananas

ir dustr y> Freddy reeling through severe floods and black leaf streak disease in Fiji and through bunchy top disease in Western Samoa, suffered another severe blow in late November when a hurricane badly damaged banana plantations on Tongatapu the main island in the Tonga Group. * y

A MESSAGE from Nukualofa on November 25 said damage to property along the Nukualofa water front was severe and that banana exports would be affected.

About a week before the hurricane, the freighter Port Montreal left Nukualofa for Japan with a cargo of 6,854 cases of bananas —the second of a series of banana ship ments to Japan. This shipment, like the first one in October, was more than 1,000 cases below the quota of 8,000; and it would seem that the hurricane has now ruined any chance that Tonga had of meeting its quota of 15,000 cases, due to be sent to Japan in the Turakina in mid- December.

A fortnight before the Tongan hurricane, the first shipment, 20,000 cases, of Australian bananas ever

sent to New Zealand arrived in Lyttleton from Brisbane. The ship ment followed the failure of Fiji and Western Samoa to meet their banana commitments to NZ.

Although everybody connected with the shipment in Sydney and New Zealand was tight-lipped about the price paid for it, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail stated on November 5 that the shipment was worth £30,000 (i.e. 30/- a case). This compared with an average of about 26/- a case which NZ recently agreed to pay for Western Samoa’s bananas, while the Fiji price has been from 20/- to 25/- a case.

Fiji’s Member for Natural Re sources, Ratu K. K. T. Mara, left for New Zealand in mid-November for talks with Government re presentatives on banana prices and the contract under which NZ buys its bananas from Fiji.

Meanwhile, Mr. S. Hunter, managing director of the Fiji Develop ment Company, left for Japan to assess the prospects of selling Fiji bananas there.

"Sense Of Achievement"

Ratu Mara returned from NZ “not completely satisfied, but with a sense of achievement”. He had extracted from NZ an increase in the existing contract quota from 180,000 to 220,000 cases a year, with a tolerance of 1,000 cases a month, which could bring the total export to 232,000 cases a year.

“Not only did we get a better quota, but we got a better price offer,” he told The Fiji Times.

The chairman of Fiji’s Banana Marketing Board, Mr. J. A. Sandys, later announced details of the in creased prices that New Zealand has agreed to pay. The prices are; Village fruit, 24/- a case (up 1/-) from January 1 to July 31, and 28/6 (up 3/6) from August 1 to December 1, each year. The quality bonus will still be payable. The new prices became effective on November 1.

A Suva correspondent says that the increased quota to 220,000 cases a year will take some getting under present conditions, and Fiji will have to pin its faith on the Lomaivuna settlement, where black leaf streak disease is controlled.