10,000 Plantains and Counting

A worker harvests plantains with a machete

We recently surpassed 10,000 plantains sold from our operations in Darien. Typically they are sold by the racimo, or bunch, for between $3-$7, usually within one of the communities where we work.

Harvesting is hard work, consisting of cutting the racimo off the plantain stalk, hauling it to the collection point, and loading them into sacks for transport to the nearby communities. 

Plantain production should continue to scale through the rest of 2014, with harvests from the Kiva-funded plantain projects starting around September. While sales and plantain prices in the communities have been steady, we're developing relationships with small supermarkets and co-ops in the area to be able to move large quantities of plantains with better pricing.