We've told you all about the residential damage caused by hurricane Earl, but the substantial damage to Belize's crops has gotten far less attention. For bananas, many farms were completely wiped out, except - by some strange act of providence - for Meridian Farms - the one linked to Johnny Zabaneh. It's a fact, while farms right next to Meridian suffered 100% crop losses, Meridian had only about 1% loss due to Earl. Bad news is, because of the Zabaneh's Kingpin designation, Meridian has no one to sell to - so the bananas are just there rotting or waiting for someone to come along and cut them down.
It's put a hurting on Belize's economy, and today the international news agency Reuters did an extensive story to show just how much it's hurt the economy.
The article points to the steep 42% drop in banana shipments since Fyffes stopped buying from Meridian farms - and that drove "a two percent drop in economic output in the first quarter."
The article points out that "The blacklisting of Zabaneh in 2012 had little impact for the first three years because Zabaneh quickly stepped away from his business.
That's when Meridian Enterprise, took over management of the farms.
That was a clean break, but last year when Zabaneh was quoted on 7News speaking about the farms' operations. That report publicly linking him to the farms prompted Fyffes to cut off purchases of the bananas. It has continued
Reuters reports that Fyffes' decision caused an instant 13.5 percent plunge in Belize's banana exports.
The value of banana exports dropped by $1 million in October 2015, or 20 percent compared to the prior year, according to the Belize Statistical Institute, which linked the drop that month to the closure of the farms.
Reuters says, quote, "Zabaneh's farms now lie dormant and overgrown with weeds, with the bananas sick with black sigatoka disease…The farms used to employ about 900 workers."
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