Convened today by Ecuador’s Agriculture Minister Pedro Alava, the Latin American Summit for Banana Unity has developed a common agenda to back calls from growers and exporters that have been made more and more forcefully over the last couple of years.
The governments call on supermarket buyers, shippers and European institutions to share responsibility for ensuring that the real costs of production are covered by prices paid for bananas and that the threat posed by TR4 fungal disease leads to investments in prevention and alternatives that are covered by the whole chain.
The seven governments (Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama) issued a declaration stating:
- that, in the framework of the concept of shared responsibility, the amount of compensation be established as a reference according to the parameters already used by the only certification body that recognises the exogenous impacts and efforts on sustainability of the production and export chain, based on the minimum reference price per country and per product certified “Fair Trade”, that analyses the particularities of each country, and offers a premium of one dollar per additional box.
- secondly, that it is urgent, within the framework of regional cooperation in the fight against Panama disease TR4, European-based international organisations commit themselves as countries to form an alliance for the management of international resources to combat the disease with phytosanitary research, training, and dissemination measures. In addition, that these organisations understand the social, environmental, and economic impact that countries would suffer from not protecting themselves from this fungus.
- thirdly, that Ministers make an official joint visit – in person and/or virtually – to the Fruit Logistica Fair in Berlin in April 2022, and to proposing an agenda to the EU in Brussels to promote regional objectives.
The call for prices to be aligned to Fairtrade’s minimum price system is new and will need to be analysed by all concerned. It is of great significance, though, and will necessarily be the subject of future debate across the banana world.
The Final Declaration text (in Spanish only) is available here: https://www.agricultura.gob.ec/ministros-de-agricultura-de-latinoamerica-promueven-acciones-frente-a-costos-de-produccion-y-fusarium-r4t/
