Buying a banana?
The next time you take a visit to the local supermarket make sure to look out for Fairtrade Caribbean bananas...


Photograph: Gloria Agor, banana worker at Volta River Estates Ltd, Ghana.

Caribbean bananas are grown on small family owned farms using more sustainable methods of production than those used on the huge monoculture plantations in Latin America.  The livlihoods of these small producers are highly dependant on continued trade with British supermarkets. 

Caribbean farmers simply cannot compete with the 'cheap' Latin American bananas produced with low paid labour - since 1993 some 15,000 family farms have been gradually squeezed out of the business.  90% of all bananas from the Windward islands carry the Fairtrade mark with plans to convert ALL production to Fairtrade by the end of the year! 

If the banana trade in the Windward Islands is allowed to die, along with it will go the efforts of family farmers over the last few years to secure their livelihoods through fair trade. Nearly 90% of bananas from the Windwards now carry the FAIRTRADE Mark guaranteeing they have been traded at a price which ensures the grower can make a decent living, pay their workers properly and make a contribution to their local community. It is thanks to the support of British consumers that small farmers in the Caribbean have been able to build this major fair trade initiative from nothing in the last seven years.

Over the last ten years, more than 20,000 small farmers have left the banana industry in the tiny Windward islands of the Caribbean because they have struggled to compete with the 'cheap' bananas from Latin America.  Bananas from the Windward Islands (As part of the African, Caribbean and Pacific states that many European countries had a colonial relationship with) have traditionally had preferential access into the European Union (EU).  This means that they have not had to pay the tariff - a tax - on bananas sold to the UK that is charged on the bananas exported from Latin America.  However, following a bitter trade dispute in the World Trade Organisation (which sets rules for how member countries trade with each other) the regime governing how bananas are imported into the EU has changed.  It is now even harder for the Caribbean farmers to compete in the international market. 

The Windward Islands now plan to convert 100% Fairtrade production and the survival of their banana industry will depend upon the loyalty of both supermarkets to stock Caribbean and Fairtrade bananas if they don't already ......      

Click here to find out more about supporting Caribbean bananas and visit www.bananalink.org.uk for further ideas and to find out more about our campaigns!