The associations of producers and exporters of banana in Latin America and the Caribbean, hope that, within the framework of the Fourth Global Conference of the World Banana Forum (WBF) that will take place in Rome between March 11 and 14, 2024: Retailers, within the framework of shared responsibility, will adopt the "FairTrade" methodology to calculate a fair price that considers environmental sustainability efforts and fair wages so that the burdens and costs of sustainability does not fall solely on producers.
The associations of producers and exporters of banana from Latin America and the Caribbean, represents Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Peru. In a joint statement the group said: "Since 2020, banana producers and exporters have experienced serious hurdles such as: dramatic increase in input costs: cardboard, freight, fertilizers, among others, which currently do not even reach pre-pandemic levels; the serious threat of the presence of the FOC R4T; increase in insecurity; adaptation of production practices to the increasing demands of multiple certification schemes required by supermarkets, as well as to European Union policies based on limited knowledge of non-European realities; the lack of recognition of the sector's efforts by retailers, who have rather opted for purchasing policies that are inconsistent with sustainability, increasingly reducing banana prices.
That, in recent years, several initiatives and projects under development by organizations such as GIZ and IDH have emerged in banana-producing countries of the region, seeking to establish mechanisms to achieve and verify compliance with the living wage, parallel to those already existing in the countries according to their rules, thereby generating additional costs for producers and overlooking regulations, local practices and the official powers of national authorities.
The banana export sector is over-certified, meaning that plantations dedicated to banana production must comply with a multitude of standards as well as initiatives of supermarkets and third parties such as IDH, which cover five areas of production.
Even though the producers and exporters of the region have presented on multiple occasions to retailers and other organizations the proposal of the banana sector in Latin America and the Caribbean to adopt the price calculation methodology and procedures established by Fair Trade to resolve the lack of a true commitment to sustainability and shared responsibility on the part of retailers. To date, Aldi Süd and Sainsbury have made public commitments to use Fairtrade prices and/or costs calculations to guide their purchasing practices, but a majority of retailers remain passive and reluctant in adopting sustainable practices.
A permanent Committee will be set up within the WBF, in which retailers, producers and exporters participate committedly with the purpose of achieving the rationalization and harmonisation of methodologies and certifications, as a major problem for the production and export of bananas to the European market is due to the fragmentation and overlap of certification standards, that generate unsustainable administrative and economic burdens for banana producers."
For more information:
Coordinador@clusterbananerodelecuador.org