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Concern mounts over future of Windward bananas |
Fairtrade supporters, campaigners and consumers last Saturday expressed their continued support for banana farmers in the Windward Islands amidst the great difficulties facing them at present.
Over the past year, hundreds of Fairtrade banana farmers from Dominica,
St.Vincent and St.Lucia have been forced out of the extra-regional
export market for a variety of reasons. These include low returns to
farmers and problems with certification to meet British supermarket
standards.
The plight of the farmers and the crisis in the banana industry as a
whole was explained to over 400 Fairtrade supporters by WINFA
Coordinator, Renwick Rose, at a special Supporters Conference held by
the Fairtrade Foundation last Saturday at King’s College, London. Rose
was one of the major presenters at the Conference along with the
British Minister of International Development, Mr. Douglas Alexander
and Dame Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Foundation and its
past Patron, noted BBC journalist, Mr. George Alagiah.
The gathering was particularly concerned about the negative effects of
a destructive “price war” currently engaged in by the major
supermarkets in which banana retail prices are set below rock-bottom
level in order to attract customers. Mr. Rose in a full-page interview
with the SUNDAY OBSERVER newspaper described this as “a scandalous way
of doing business at the expense of the farmers”. He accused those
supermarkets of “using our product for their own ends without any
commensurate returns for farmers”.
The actions of the supermarkets have not found favour with the
Fairtrade supporters who assured Mr. Rose of their continued commitment
to support Fairtrade and bananas from the Fairtrade farmers of the
Windward Islands.
Meanwhile, the banana price war has continued to have considerable
media coverage, including a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s ‘You and Yours’
programme on Friday 9th October. Anna Cooper, National Coordinator of
Banana Link, Michael Barker of The Grocer Magazine, and Natalie Berg of
Planet Retail took part in the discussion. To listen to what was said,
click here .
Source: WINFA Media, Banana Link, BBC iplayer, The Observer , 12th October 2009
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Choosing Fairtrade bananas has a direct and positive impact on the
lives of producers, workers and their communities.
Banana Link is a British based NGO campaigning for a socially just, environmentally sound and economically viable international banana trade. 
The Windward Islands Farmers' Association (WINFA) is a confederation of small farmers' organisations supporting small scale farmers in St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Grenada, Dominica and Martinique.