Classification standards in the marketing of bananas.

The classification and standardization in banana cultivation allows us to efficiently guide the marketing that is carried out in the country, making it competitive for exports and national marketing. It should be noted that they are derived from the functions of marketing, therefore successful entrepreneurs say today that it is one of the favorable instruments that allows to fulfill the function of satisfying customers since they get what they need and want, as they make easier and less expensive the movement of products through the agri-food circuit of the item. In this sense, to point out the classification and standardization is to have the functions of facilitation or also called auxiliary, considered so because they contribute to the execution of the activities mentioned above and also because they are fulfilled at any level of the marketing process among which we find the classification and standardization of products, within which reference is made to the weight and measurement, as well as quality, in search of satisfying the current needs of consumers each one from their trenches of the market process.

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However, for Urdaneta (1997) "the qualitative factors commonly used in grading include size, weight, shape, color, taste, odor, length, diameter, hardness, density, uniformity, the content of various elements such as moisture and foreign materials, physical damage such as bruising or insect infestation, age and viscosity". Therefore, each aspect mentioned above determines the classification and value of the plantain during each link of the marketing chain in the municipality. Nowadays, the classification of products is more normal than what is really known by name, therefore Urdaneta (1997), expresses that it is "to have a set of rules that allow the selection of homogeneous lots of the product". However, Castellano (2000) states that qualitative factors frequently used in the classification of agricultural products such as "size, weight, shape, color, taste, smell, length, diameter, hardness, density, uniformity, moisture content, foreign matter content, physical damage: bruising, insect infections, age, degree of ripeness, viscosity and delicacy" can be used to make the marketing of the product more efficient in the local, national and international markets.

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According to Martínez et al. (2009), bananas are "considered a crop of great socioeconomic importance worldwide due to their production, their high nutritional value, as a key food in the daily diet of many families and as a source of direct and indirect employment". Meanwhile, Del Valle (2006) states that around "10 million hectares of bananas are cultivated, mainly by small farmers in tropical countries, making it an item of socio-economic importance, capable of generating a large movement of foreign exchange in national and international markets". Therefore, when describing the fresh banana, it is mentioned as the most relevant alternative in many South American countries, the marketing of the crop requires classification and standardization parameters at local and national levels that allow them to reduce marketing problems, economic, technical and production decrease, which significantly affect the profitability of the crop.