Panama

WORKERS TO BUY CHIQUITA UNIT. Worker cooperative to buy Chiquita's Panama unit Chiquita Brands International Inc. said it has worked out a deal to sell the assets of its Puerto Annuelles Fruit Co. division in Panama to a worker cooperative, reports American City Business Journals Inc. (April 28, 2003):

Chiquita has been negotiating with the cooperative, known as Cooperativa de Servicios Multiples de Puerto Armulles, for several months. Chiquita created Panama's banana industry by carving plantations out of rainforest land in the early 1900s. But the company said the Pacific division has lost US$90 million in the past five years because of continual pay strikes among well-organized banana pickers and rising irrigation costs;

Under the agreement, the cooperative will buy the unit's assets for about US$19.8 million. The proceeds will be used to pay workers 100% of their severance benefits and cover other liabilities, Chiquita said. The cooperative plans to finance the purchase from long-term loans of US$14.8 million from a local bank and US$5 million from Chiquita, which will be repaid from the proceeds of future banana shipments. The agreement includes a 10-year contract to sell fruit to Chiquita at market prices, with Chiquita providing some technical support in agricultural and logistics operations. "After months of hard work and several days of intense negotiations, I am delighted that we have reached a fair and responsible long-term agreement," said CEO Cyrus Freidheim. "Workers will retain their jobs, and the economic vitality of the local economy will be sustained."

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PANAMA PRAYS FOR RAIN. After seven months without rain in a tropical country that usually sees heavy rainfall for most of the year, farmers and city-dwellers alike are suffering the effects of almost two centuries of deforestation, as one of Panama's worst droughts in living memory takes hold, reports Reuters (May 1, 2003):

Witnessed most acutely in Panama's southeastern Los Santos Province, water shortages are affecting cities and towns, while crops fail and desperate farmers abandon their scrawny cattle to graze on what is left of the dusty meadows. The...