Fairtrade launches Future of Bananas campaign

Fairtrade International has unveiled a new initiative to deliver decent incomes for workers on Fairtrade-certified banana plantations across the world. The organisation’s sustainable offering to achieve living wages, living incomes and resilient banana supply chains is being launched at Fruit Attraction in Madrid.

The offer combines three elements – the Fairtrade Minimum Price (FMP), Living Wage Reference Price (LWRP), and Fairtrade Living Wage Differential (LWD) – designed to make both living wages and resilient banana supply chains a reality.

According to Fairtrade, the initiative aims to ensure that banana workers earn as a minimum the living wage for their country, while helping retailers fulfil their commitments to a sustainable banana industry. More than 35,658 workers and farmers employed by 265 Fairtrade banana producers stand to benefit, the organisation noted.

“Our key commercial partners are increasingly demanding the tools and the data to enable them to fulfil their commitments to pay a fair price so that banana workers can earn a living wage,” said Silvia Campos, Fairtrade International’s senior advisor for bananas. “Our unique offer is a game-changer for workers, traders and retailers.

Fairtrade said it was the only global standard that calculated a publicly available LWRP to enable the industry to close the gap towards living wages. An elected workers’ Premium Committee on each plantation could also distribute additional cash payments from the Fairtrade Premium – the extra amount earned by selling on Fairtrade terms – to close the living wage gap, it outlined.

Fairtrade has also announced an average increase of 0.2 per cent in the Fairtrade Minimum Price for ‘free on board’ bananas (the purchase price for importing traders) which comes into effect from January 2024. The Fairtrade Premium, the additional US$1 per box of bananas sold, remains unchanged.