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Yes, We Have Fair
Trade Bananas!
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Fair Trade Report series:
Cooperation Among Cooperatives…
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by Ruth Ann Smalley
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"Normally if you are a
supermarket you don’t know your producer and you don’t care.… You don’t
go further and see the social impact of what it means to produce
bananas.… Fair Trade goes further and says, 'there is a social
dimension, it is not just about bananas, it is about the producers, the
workers, their families and the environment.'"– Carlos Eugenio Vargas
Masis, COOPETRABASUR, Costa Rica (okeusa.com)
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The
typical shopper probably doesn’t think much about the meaning of
bananas. But banana production has had an enormous social and
environmental impact. This is partly due to the fruit's popularity:
according to Transfair USA, "bananas are the world’s fourth most
valuable food crop, behind rice, wheat and potatoes, and they are the
most profitable export fruit in the world." The USDA found "the average
American eats over 26 pounds" annually, and the banana market provides
the livelihood for "some ten million people in 25 tropical countries"
("Backgrounder").
A group of local college students and their professor recently ventured
beyond the typical shopper’s view of bananas when they visited Ecuador
to learn about Fair Trade. In January, Silvia Mejía
Estévez, who teaches Spanish language and literature in American
studies classes at the College of Saint Rose, took her students to El
Guabo to meet with Asoguabo, an association of banana farmers. Although
much of their market is European, Asoguabo, along with the
cooperatively owned Costa Rican plantation, COOPETRABASUR, sells
bananas to the U.S. Fair Trade company Oké. Made up of about 400
small, independent farmers, Asoguabo grows organically. The students
visited a plantation, as well as a health center and special education
school supported by Fair Trade premiums.
"Students had a chance to see both ends of the process" when they
watched the fruit being manually harvested and processed. "A couple
told me they had never thought of all the work involved," Mejía
noted. Even though she’s from Ecuador, Mejía had never been to a
banana plantation, so she could relate to the students’ situation. An
Honest Weight member worker herself, she brought the students to the
Co-op before their trip, to learn more about Fair Trade products.
Banana production has a grim history, and the abuses continue. Banana
companies have brutally suppressed workers, shedding their blood when
they have attempted to strike or unionize. Workers are grossly
underpaid and subjected to dangerous conditions and sexual harassment.
Conventional growers are exposed to a deadly array of chemicals, and
workers in the field are often caught unprotected in arial spraying.
Many are children ("Ecuador"). Along with the severe health conditions
such as cancer and sterility associated with the industry, the
chemicals have caused environmental damage, such as the devastation of
Costa Rican coral reefs.
"The income produced by Asoguabo has lots of meaning," Mejía
told me. "It is a form of going against all the historical
exploitation." She said that in an area where cancer deaths were common
among plantation workers who apply chemicals, Asoguabo made it clear
that they conform to the requirements of Fair Trade and organic
certifiers. But she also pointed out that this represents only a small
portion of the market: "Production of bananas is still in the hands of
the richest 5%. People keep getting sick and not getting enough money
for survival."
Jordan Bar Am, operations manager for Oké bananas, echoed
Mejía’s point about the scale of conventional vs. Fair Trade
production. "Four to five companies control 95–98% of the most consumed
fruit in the U.S., so what we’re doing is pretty spectacularly unique."
Moreover, the banana market has been impacted by the faltering global
economy. The complex multi-party organization through which
COOPETRABASUR and Asoguabo have been associated with Oké, has
recently had to undergo a shift.
Worker-owned Fair Trade organization Equal Exchange is now the primary
investor. The bananas you see in the store will no longer bear the
Oké label. Oké is still in operation as an importer—"we
focus on getting small farmers’ bananas to you"—but will work out of
Equal Exchange’s offices.
"It takes a ton of work moving small farmers’ bananas around," Bar Am
says. "We speak with growers daily due to perishability, and we import
over 200 containers of bananas a year." Each container carries 40,000
pounds of bananas. Bar Am hopes to grow Oké’s business, by
encouraging more co-ops to buy. As Mejía and her students
observed, this buying choice is meaningful for farmers, as well as for
co-ops and their members: "Buying Fair Trade is a very good way to
practice responsible shopping."
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References
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Bar
Am, Jordan. 2009. Telephone interview (Feb. 4). "Backgrounder: Fair
Trade Certified Bananas," html version of the file www.transfairusa.org/pdfs/backgrounder_banana.pdf.
"Ecuador: Widespread Abuse on Banana Plantations." 2002. Human Rights
Watch. www.hrw.org/en/news/2002/04/24/ecuador-widespread-labor-abuse-banana-plantations.
Estévez, Silvia Mejía. 2009. Telephone interview (Feb. 4).
Solomon, Joel. 2008. "Equal Exchange Collaborating for the Sake of
Bananas," www.renewalpartners.com/blog/joel-solomon/equal-exchange-collaborating-sake-bananas
(December 30).
okeusa.com/aboutfairtrade,
12/02/2007 (no longer available, site under construction).
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