Banana producers in Latin America want better pay to cope with effects of climate crisis

Bananas are becoming harder and more expensive to produce. Photograph: Alberto Lowe/ReutersView image in fullscreenBananas are becoming harder and more expensive to produce.

Prefer the Guardian on GoogleBanana producers in Latin America are calling for better pay to help cope with the impact of the climate crisis, as they face big drops in production resulting from extreme weather during this year’s super El Niño event.

Ventos fortes em partes da Colômbia, um dos maiores fornecedores ao mercado britânico, onde secas são previstas em algumas regiões este ano, e chuvas intensas no Peru e no Equador já estão afetando a produção, segundo o órgão de comércio ético Fairtrade Foundation.

In the Dominican Republic, farmers are expected to face drought conditions, with forecasts of drier and warmer than usual conditions.

Pesquisa da Fairtrade sugere que durante o ciclo anterior do El Niño, a produtividade entre seus agricultores e trabalhadores caiu 13% na República Dominicana, 22% no Equador e 6% no Peru em comparação com o ano anterior.

O evento El Niño em 1983 – um dos mais fortes já registrados – afetou 15% da área total plantada de banana no Equador, com uma redução nas exportações de 36%.

Dr Carley-Jane Stanton, líder de clima e meio ambiente na Fairtrade, diz que este El Niño deve levar a condições climáticas mais extremas, incluindo chuvas intensas e ventos fortes, e “esperamos que os impactos sobre os produtores sejam mais severos do que no ciclo 23-24”.

Ele disse que as perdas de produtividade relacionadas ao clima e a queda nos ganhos com exportações, agravadas por problemas cambiais, estavam “minando a sustentabilidade econômica da indústria”.

Ever Antonio Flores Muños, a worker at the Agrosiete banana producer in Colombia, told Fairtrade: “Over the past 10 years the climate has changed a lot. It’s been getting much hotter.

it’s really intense. Some places have had losses due to the climate, flooding, strong winds. It’s going to affect all of us – our workers, colleagues – everything will be at great risk, and our wages will decrease.”.

Fairtrade is calling for legislation in the UK to tackle unfair trading practices, such as low or late payments to farmers and contracts which push risk down the supply chain, so that producers can invest more into improving their crops’ resilience to severe weather and more likelihood of pests and diseases.

Worker health is also expected to be affected by more extreme weather.

Embora algumas empresas, incluindo Sainsbury’s, a Co‑op e a Waitrose, tenham tomado medidas voluntárias ao adquirir apenas bananas Faitrade, que garantem um preço mínimo, o relatório diz que ainda há mais trabalho a ser feito.

Eleanor Harrison, the chief executive of Fairtade, said: “The UK’s banana supply depends on the people growing our bananas having the resources they need to adapt to climate change, and to invest in their future.

Fair prices, climate resilience and decent work go hand in hand.”.

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While bananas are becoming harder and more expensive to produce, supermarket prices have remained unchanged for almost 40 years despite rising costs for fertiliser, fuel and labour.

Pesquisa da Ethical Trading Initiative revelou que os preços pagos aos fornecedores em 2026 não cobriam nem os custos básicos de produção para 66,7% deles.

It said producers need more help to adapt or mitigate climatic changes, which could mean suitable land for banana cultivation could shrink by an average of 61% across Latin America and the Caribbean by 2050, according to research for the Inter-American Development Bank published in 2020.