Banana Industry Act.

This Act provides for the establishment of the Banana Control Board as a body corporate (sect. 3). The purposes of the Board shall be: to promote, foster and encourage the development of the banana industry and the export of bananas, to regulate and control the production, marketing and exporting of bananas and to produce of bananas alone or in association with others, and to carry out other functions related to functions here specified including the placing on the market6 of bananas. The Minister may by Order declare any area of the country to be a designated area for the purposes of this Act. Subject to the provisions of this Act, no person shall plant, grow, cultivate or otherwise be responsible for bananas in any designated area except in accordance with the terms and conditions of a valid licence issued to him by the Board. The owner of the plantation existing in the designated area shall however within ninety days from the date of the Order apply to the Board for a licence required by section 14, and if the Board refuses to grant a licence, the owner shall destroy the plantation. The Minister may, after consultation with the Board, make regulations generally for the control of the planting, growing, cultivation, harvesting, preventing and curing of infestation and disease, transportation, handling, packing, and marketing of bananas. A body corporate by the name of the Banana Growers’ Association is created under section 21. The objects of the Association are set out in section 22. Other matters regarding the Association are regulated by sections 23 to 35. (42 sections)