OREANDA-NEWS  Bananas from India, as well as Nigeria and Angola, could completely replace Ecuadorian berries on the shelves of Russian stores — these countries have the largest "free" product balance, while all of them have a large trade deficit with Russia, RIA Novosti found out based on open data.

The Rosselkhoznadzor, in early February, concerned about the situation with the supply of bananas from Ecuador, in which a humpback fly was found, asked the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of the South American state to suspend the certification of five exporters of these fruits.

According to UN statistics published in December, 135.5 million tons of bananas were grown in the world in 2022. The leaders in banana production by the end of 2022 were India, China and Indonesia, which grew 34.5 million, 12 million and 9 million tons of bananas, respectively, during the year. Nigeria (8 million tons) and Brazil (7 million tons) were also in the top 5.

In addition, the top ten in production included Ecuador (6.1 million tons in 2022), the Philippines (5.9 million), Guatemala (4.8 million), Angola (4.6 million), and Tanzania (3.5 million tons).

At the same time, the absolute leader in the world in the export of this berry is Ecuador (7.1 million tons), Guatemala — 2.8 million tons and Colombia — 2.4 million tons. The Philippines exported 2.3 million tons of bananas in 2022, while Costa Rica exported 2.1 million tons.

According to the latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2021, the world's highest consumption of bananas was in India (26 million tons), China (11 million tons) and Indonesia (8.3 million tons). In other exporting countries, consumption is significantly lower. At the same time, some countries separately reported on industrial consumption: 2.2 million tons in Angola, another 350 thousand tons each in Nigeria and Indonesia.

In eleven months of last year, Russia received 1.3 million tons of bananas from Ecuador. Taking into account consumption and exports, most of the "free" bananas remain in India — 8.1 million tons. Nigeria follows with 4.8 million tons. Potentially, both countries can fully cover Russian berry needs.