A banana plantation in Higuerito, south of Santa Cruz in Yojoa’s Municipality, started to expand their fields by 12 hectares this year, and similar projects were started north of El Progreso, where a group of ex-workers of the Tela Railroad Company are planning to start harvesting 115 hectares of bananas in January of 2011.

Adrián Roque, the producer and controller in Higuerito for the agricultural company Agrícola Llano, said they plan to make the most of the rich land when they expand to 12 hectares. So far they have 630 hectares of land, employing 700 people, and with this expansion, they expect to be able to employ 1000 workers.

“We believe that by generating more sources of work, the area’s economy gets stronger, and we trust that next year the production will be better than in 2010. The new crop will be ready for export in the next few weeks, improving the country’s overall exports”, Roque said.

The employer indicated that this year’s production will end with a total of 1,300,000 boxes of bananas. The objective for 2011 is more than 1,800,000 boxes, and if possible, they hope to produce as many as two million boxes.