Fair Trade On The Banana Industry

John Soluri 's Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, (Which for spatial and repetitive purposes, I will refer to as Banana Cultures for the remainder of the paper), introduces the reader to a world of corporate greed, consumption, and environmental change using the history of the common, everyday fruit, the banana. He explores the various political occurrences, health problems, and changes in mass media through the rise of the consumption of the banana in the United States, and around the globe.

We eat bananas almost every day; however, most of us do not really know where these fruits come from. In Banana Cultures, John Soluri focuses on the relationship between banana production in Honduras, especially in the North Coast between roughly 1870 and 1975, and banana consumption in the U. S.. He focuses on growing, protecting, transporting, and mass marketing of bananas. John Soluri integrates Agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history in order to trace the symbolic growth of the banana industry. The author admits that his work is highly interdisciplinary, as a desirable trait in the academic world. The study incorporates a wide range of sources, including manuscript census data from Honduras, fruit company records, published scientific records, Honduran and U.S government correspondence, oral testimonies, and ephemera from U.S mass culture. Throughout his work, he combines elements of geography, biology, social history, foreign affairs, and environmental history. Soluri also looks at labor practices and worker’s lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, and the effects of pesticides in the Honduran environment and people. His central argument is that United States consumption of bananas causes major social, political, and environmental change in Honduras. In addition, he looks at the banana pathogens, the ways the United States treated these fungal diseases, and the terribly detrimental effects these new treatments had on the farmers on

"Agriculture is undoubtedly the most important activity for the majority of the world’s poor, and at the same time it is the most protected sector in industrial countries." Agriculture continues to play an important role throughout the world, while in recent years, farmers have been negatively and positively affected by the trade agreements established by both the WTO and Fair Trade system; specifically the banana and coffee farmers. The government's role was to liberalize trade by reducing tariffs and they initiated this by introducing GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). This was an agreement between countries that slowly expanded to include countries. Agricultural Trade was left out of the GATT due to the U.S. and European Union "banana war." This is a trade dispute between the US and EU on how the bananas are sourced and imported, even though neither one of these countries are the banana growers. The GATT was later re-established as the WTO (World Trade Organization). As Weis stated, The WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) came into effect in 1995 and constitutes a major landmark in the development of the global food economy as its set in place, for the first time, multilateral rules restricting the sovereignty of governments to establish their own agricultural policies. Their main focus was to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system. Their objective is to entrench and extend the rights of transnational capital in trade and

The Brazilian acai berry has been a food staple for low income families for years and a cultural symbol for generations. This berry is vital in Brazil, where it is farmed and, until recently had a relatively small market. However, after an Oprah interview the demand for acai has become an international affair. The rising demand has created a free market; however the once inexpensive food staple has become too expensive for the low income families. This report will analyse the current markets advantages and disadvantages, followed by two possible government intervention models. The examined interventions will be export tariff and price ceiling.

Banana is a commodity that is widely used worldwide. Bananas are neither too extravagant, nor too expensive meaning that anyone and any level of socio-economic status can purchase them, from the very poor to the very wealthy. Bananas can be found at any brand name store, farmers market, or flea market. Bananas are commodities that are highly valued, traded, and desired. The success of the banana can be attributed to the fact that it can be grown and harvested all year long in different parts of the world. The success lies in the mass production, distribution and consumption of these goods. However, there is an ugly reality people are exploited, countries and people are complete dependent economically on bananas, and countries and terrain are destroyed by those corporations that benefit the most from the distribution of bananas.

The documentary Black Gold, is about the world coffee market and an Ethiopian fair trade cooperative. Ethiopia being the birthplace of coffee is the largest producer of coffee in the world, producing some of the highest quality of coffee beans in the world, like Harar, Yuban and Sidamo types of coffee. The significant problems pointed out in this documentary show what is wrong in the global trading system. Mainly, while most of us continue have our lattes and specialty coffees, the amount paid to the Ethiopian coffee farmers is so low that a lot of them have been forced to chop down some of their coffee fields and rely on other crops to help them survive. The Ethiopian people are malnourished; they have no clean water, no healthcare, and no schools for their families. As quoted in the film, “They are living hand to mouth”.

By 1993, the Banana Empire ceased to exist due to Panama Disease, ongoing labour issues, the rise of new competition and the increased assertiveness of host country governments all contributed to the growing intricacy of the industry. Nowadays, the modern banana farmer has been exposed to many pesticides, which have led to adverse health conditions for the majority of workers but working conditions and wages are on the rise currently. The introduction of fair trade bananas in 2004 was fundamental in bettering the working conditions for farmers and labourers.

“We live in a world where we can’t have everything we want.” Simply put, society does not all of individuals to acquire everything they want, meaning they often have to choose what they truly need and want the most. A common occurrence of this is having to choose which clothes to buy as individuals often don’t have the resources to pay for all of what they want.

“Colombia is well endowed with minerals and energy resources. It has the largest coal reserves in Latin America and is second to Brazil in hydroelectric potential. The country's oil reserves total about 2.6 billion barrels. However, these are estimated to represent less than 20% of the country's actual oil potential.” This site also discusses how Colombia’s unique climate and topography allow for success in production of natural goods such as the aforementioned coffee, flowers, tropical fruits, and livestock to name a few (“Colombia Trade News”).

Colombia is the leading exporter of petroleum, coffee, coal, apparel, bananas, and cut flowers. It is rich in minerals and energy. It is the lead producer of emeralds and is the second largest producer of platinum and gold in South America. Colombia is also the World’s largest producer of cocaine. Colombia produced many emeralds. They believed that the gemstones contained special powers such as healing, making one smarter, revealing the truth, and the power to block spells. Colombia is

The author of the book, “The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World” (2008), Dan Koeppel, who is a famous journalist describes in a fascinating way banana’s cultural importance, threats associated with the crops of banana in the future and banana’ history. Banana is a very delicious fruit and is eaten all over the world. Banana is one of the world’s fourth largest harvests in the world. Dole and Chiquita are eminent American based distributors and producers of banana. They are claiming to produce the banana on low price. In this book, Koeppel discusses the risks associated to the plantation of banana around the world. He also discusses the fact that due to blight, the plantation of banana is destroyed (Koeppel, 2008). He points out that the farmers and the producers have no insight at all regarding this matter (Koeppel, 2008).

“Historically, the banana trade symbolized economic imperialism, injustices in the global trade market, and the exploitation of agriculture-dependent third-world countries”(2). However, they remain to be one of the most profitable items in grocery stores. Making bananas crucial to economic and global food stability for countries all over the world. They are the third largest staple crop, coming only after wheat and coffee. Since bananas are such a sought after fruit, many companies have gone to extensive lengths in the to fight for a share of the market. Chiquita Brands International was one of the pioneer companies to try and globalize bananas. They took a risk and made some very critical mistakes along the way.

Sergio Margulis, the Lead Environmental Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean department of the World Bank, is worried about the economic damage that Amazonian agriculture may bring upon the people in the region. After performing an extensive and thorough microeconomic analysis of the area’s agricultural industry, he estimated the social costs of deforestation caused by agricultural encroachment to be approximately USD $100 annually per hectare of lost rainforest, which exceeds the potential profits to be made from agriculture (Margulis 61). Margulis, as an employee of the World Bank, is responsible for helping his organization determine the most effective and efficient method to invest capital in an effort to reduce poverty, and therefore, he has a strong incentive to find accurate economic figures in order to make the wisest recommendations on how to best help those in need. Although his research determined that agricultural expansion would yield a non-negligible economic benefit for the people, he found the drawbacks of the resulting deforestation caused by such expansion to be unjustifiably excessive from a social and economic

No good deed goes unpunished. No act of charity goes unresented. Buying coffee at the local coffee shop down the street, we see the Fair Trade logo and wonder whether ordering Fair Trade coffee rather than conventional coffee really supports farmers in unindustrialized countries. In other words, does Fair Trade work? The Fair Trade initiative aims to improve the living conditions of producers in developing nations. The goals of Fair Trade are to achieve higher prices for producers, greater availability of financing for producers, longer-term and more sustainable buyer-seller relationships, improved social goods and community development, and the use of environmentally friendly production processes. Fair Trade works through a certification

Cohort 4 believes that fair trade is the most prosperous way to trade with other countries. Both free trade and fair trade have advantages and disadvantages. The researchers in Cohort 4 have established a viewpoint regarding fair trade and free trade. Considering the research that the cohort has conducted, they are in opposition to free trade.