2023-11-15 22:02:15
Banana producers in Bolivia installed a blockade on a route that connects with Argentina to demand that they be paid more than 12 million dollars, as a result of the exports they made to the Argentine market.
The main blocking point is in the area called Campo Pajoso that connects the department of Santa Cruz with the southern department of Tarija, “to prevent products from arriving from the Argentine side,” producer Róger Mérida told the media.
Mérida indicated that in the previous weeks his sector carried out several measures such as some protests and a demonstration in front of the Argentine embassy in La Paz, but that despite all the commitments of the neighboring country to comply with the payment “they were not made effective.”
“If there is not going to be a clear solution (to the problem) this is going to become massive,” said Agustín Conde, who is the president of the Community Organization of Banana Growers of the Tropics of Cochabamba (Ocobantrop).
The blockade with dozens of protesters was installed last midnight and remains on the international route to Argentina, forcing passengers and passers-by to make transfers to reach their destinations, the regional police reported.
“Fair demand”
For his part, Henrry Medrano, president of the Civic Committee of Yacuiba, a city located on the border with Argentina, considered that although the demand is “fair,” the southern region of Bolivia is being harmed with a problem that belongs to the producers who They are from the center of the country.
The lack of payment of the 12 million dollars to the sector that originates from the central department of Cochabamba caused the production of the fruit and its export to Argentina to be paralyzed, something that affects some 22,000 families dedicated to that work.
Some farmers decided to change their work area due to the debt and the difficulties that arose in the destination market, according to the producers.
The protest on the route is aimed at holding a meeting between the Bolivian and Argentine authorities to obtain a solution for the payment of banana exports, after completing this the pressure measures would be lifted.
Argentina established a bureaucratic process that delays payment for fruit, and this has also caused problems with banana growers in Paraguay and Brazil, according to Bolivian exporters. EF
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