Madeira's Banana Growers Press GESBA for 40 to 50 Cents More per Kilo as the Regional Fair Reopens an Old Price Fight

Madeira's banana growers used the weekend's Regional Banana Fair (Feira Regional da Banana) to reopen a long-running argument over money, demanding that the price paid to farmers rise by at least 40 to 50 cents a kilo across every grade of the island's signature fruit.

The call came from Antonino de Abreu, president of the Association of Banana Producers' Organisations of Madeira (ABAMA), speaking at the fair in Madalena do Mar, in the municipality of Ponta do Sol, where producers gathered alongside members of the regional government and representatives of the political parties. Abreu argued that current rates fail to keep pace with production costs and that "there should be an increase of 40 to 50 cents for each quality" of banana.

What growers are paid today

The fruit is bought through GESBA (Empresa de Gestão do Sector da Banana), the publicly owned company that manages the sector on the island. Under the pricing in force, the top "extra" grade is paid at €1.00 a kilo when GESBA collects it in the field, €1.20 when the producer delivers it to the warehouse, and €1.24 when it is delivered and certified. The regional government, run by a PSD/CDS-PP coalition, counters that GESBA is already paying more than in the past — noting that 43% of the fruit was paid above €1.20 a kilo — and, crucially, paying on time.

That distinction matters. GESBA has faced repeated complaints in recent years over late payments to the roughly 2,800 families who grow bananas on Madeira's steep, hand-worked terraces, and the company has previously had to step in to cover producers' costs after delays.

A shrinking harvest with an outsized identity

The banana is one of Madeira's defining products, a protected regional brand that anchors the island's agricultural economy and its image abroad. Yet the harvest has been shrinking for a generation. Production reached about 20,900 tonnes in 2025, well below the roughly 50,000 tonnes recorded in the early 1990s, squeezed by an ageing workforce, small fragmented plots and what growers describe as a chronic shortage of labour.

Sugarcane farmers, whose crop feeds Madeira's rum and honey-cake industries, aired the same grievance at the fair, saying the per-kilo rates they receive no longer cover the cost of tending and cutting the cane.

For producers, the dispute is ultimately about whether banana-growing remains viable for the next generation. Abreu and his members frame the requested increase not as a windfall but as the minimum needed to keep terraces in cultivation rather than abandoned to scrub. The regional government, for its part, is expected to keep pointing to GESBA's improved payment record as evidence that the system is already moving in the growers' direction — leaving the two sides some distance apart as the next harvest approaches.