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Who we are & why bananas?
Banana Link is a small and dynamic not-for-profit co-operative, founded in 1996 that campaigns for a fair and sustainable banana trade. We work in close partnership with Latin American banana workers trade unions, small Caribbean farmers and civil society organizations in Europe and the U.S.
Most of the bananas eaten in Britain come from Latin America and West Africa, where production is characterised by large-scale plantations, and the Caribbean where most bananas are grown on small family farms.
Bananas are symbolic of the wide range of injustices present in international trade today. These include:
• unacceptable working and living conditions for many of those who grow and harvest
the bananas;
• suppression of independent trade unions;
• environmental devastation caused by toxic chemicals and intensive farming;
• the disproportionate economic and political power of the handful of multinational corporations which supply bananas to the North;
• the increasing buyer power of European and North American supermarkets (bananas are the single biggest profit making items sold in British supermarket)
Bananas also link these issues to the international trade rules that increasingly shape our lives.
Bananas have been subject to one of the most controversial trade disputes in the World Trade Organisation that pitted Europe against the United States and some Latin American countries.
Objectives
Banana Link works to achieve fair and sustainable production and trade in bananas and related relevant crops that will alleviate poverty and benefit the livelihoods and health of small-scale producers and agricultural workers, while reducing environmental degradation that results from polluting cultivation practices.
We aim to achieve our objectives by:
1. Raising awareness about the social, economic and environmental conditions of banana production and trade to mobilize action by consumers, NGOs and trades unions;
2. Building and strengthening alliances and solidarity between producer and consumer countries, particularly with small-scale farmers' organisations in the Caribbean and banana workers' trade unions in Latin America, and civil society organizations in Europe and North America;
3. Promoting sustainable production and trade practices, and their integration into international policymaking;
4. Facilitating fair trade with marginalised banana producers and encouraging suppliers and retailers to comply with minimum social and environmental standards whilst seeking constant improvement;
5. Monitoring and verifying social and environmental standards in banana production to influence international fair trade labeling and ethical trade movements.
To read our Annual Report 2008, click here .
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