Bananas

• Banana


  Banana trade creates environmental, economic, social and political issues

  400 million people rely on bananas for their staple food

  5th most traded commodity

  Latin America/Caribbean major producing region (for export)

  Cavendish bananas are dominant

  bananas only grow in hot + humid environments
• Working conditions


  Latin America - no real unions in countries like Costa Rica

  workers working 12-14 hours a day

  workers live in areas with bad hygiene (open sewers) due to lack of sanitation on the plantations

  don't have permanent contracts + no job security

  sexual harrasment

  no workers rights

  chemicals sprayed onto the bananas have had serious medical problems for the workers - protective clothing is not fit for purpose - workers poisoned

  heat and humidity also makes wearing protective clothing uncomfortable
• How are profits distributed in the banana supply chain?

  TNCs want high profits - of 1 30p banana the shop gets 13p, ripeners 4p, importers 3p, shipping 4p, plantation owners 5p, worker 1p
• Patterns of production


  120 million tonnes of bananas are grown globally

  India, China, Brazil and Indonesia are the biggest producers but they produce them for their own domestic markets
• Patterns of export


  Latin America and the Caribbean are the main regoins that produce bananas comercially for export

  Ecuador is the biggest country for banana exports along with Costa Rica and Guatemala. They are highly dependant on banana exports. The Philippines have become an increasingly important exporter

  in 2018 Ecuador exported 6.6 million tonnes of bananas
• Consumption of bananas


  top 5 consuming countries are not major banana producers. As a result they must import bananas from places which are major banana producers
• Key distribution routes


  27% of the worlds exported bananas go to the USA, 28% to the EU, 8% to Central Europe and Russia, 12% to Asia, 2% to the Arabian Penninsula

  USA mainly imports from Central and South America

  EU imports from Central America, South America, the Caribbean and West Africa

  Russia imports from South America, Arabian Peninsula

  East Asia imports from the Philippines
• How it reinforces the core-periphery theory

  Involves less developed regoins producing and exporting low value goods to the more developed regions and making little money while the TNCs get profit

  Rich get richer, poor get poorer
• Role of TNCs in the banana trade

  In the past 4 TNCs (Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte (all US based), and Fyffes (based in Ireland)) dominated the banana trade. The other important producer is Noboa, a national corporation based in Ecuador

  These companies are vertically integrated into the supply chain

  In 2002 the big 5 companies controlled 70% of the market but their share fell to >45% by 2017

  Big companies have freed themselves of direct ownership of plantations in favour of guarenteed supply chains with medium and large scale producers

  An increasing number of national growing companies based in Ecuador, Costa Rico and Columbia sell their produce either to the TNCs as distributors or directly to retailers in the developed countries
• Aims of the SDT agreement that was part of the Lome Convention (1975)


  ACP countries were given special and differential treatement (SDT) with preferential tariff free import quotas to supply the EU markets. The intention was to enable these former European colonies to develop independently without having to use overseas aid.

  The agreement was extended to a list of suppliers including Cameroon, Dominican Republic, Belize, Ivory Coast, Jamacia, Ghana, Surinam and the Windward isles
• ACP countries


  African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States
• Success of the SDT agreement

  protected many smaller, family run farms in the Caribbean and Africa from competition with the large Latin American producers whose bananas were produced more cheaply on mechanised plantations
• end of the SDT agreement


  At the time the US TNCs that controlled the Latin American crop were supplying around 75% of the EU market while only 7% came from Caribbean suppliers. Despite this in 1992 the TNCs filed a complaint to GATT (now WTO) that the practise consitiuted unfair trade. In 1997 WTO ruled against the EU and ordered the EU to cease the discrimination. TNCs did this because they felt farmers were being given preferential treatment and they were losing out. The WTO supported TNCs because they will support free trade over protectionist agreement evenn if it is to help development
• Winners and Losers


  TNCs and supermarkets beneift the most from the banana trade as they get most of the profit from the sales

  Banana growers and plantation workers lose out because TNCs pay them low wages and they have no choice but to accept it or not get paid at all
• Environmental impacts


  commercial plantations operated by large TNCs apply around 30kg of active ingredients per hecate per year. these include fugicides, insecticides and herbicides. In addition fertilisers are applied regularly and after harvesting the fruit is washed with a disinfectant. With the exception of cotton the banana industry has the largest agrochemical input into the environment

  Banana plantations also cost the environment in terms of deforestation, soil fertility (because of contaminants) and loss of biodiversity (especially aquatic life as pollutants run into water courses)

  There is a growing market segment of ethical consumers in richer nations who are willing to pay a higher price for fairtrade and organic bananas