Figure 1Fairtrade farmer working in a farm at Sociedad Agrícola Prieto, Ecuador. Source: Fairtrade

Imagine having to drop out of school at the age of 14 years old because you need to help on your family farm in order to earn your living expenses (Zamora 2013). When after long hours of working below tremendous heat you do not even earn enough to meet the lowest wage. How would you feel? These are the real-life situations of the farmers of poor areas, behind the scrumptious and gorgeous food that people get each day, is the ugly truth of unfair farming trade.

The issue of unfair trade leads to several different problems, United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, also known as SDGs, such as decent work and economic growth, good health and well-being and clean water and sanitation all links to the central topic of unfair trade. These problems have not been fully resolved yet; the United Nations is working hard towards it to eliminate them.

 

Unfair trade

Banana farmers

As the demand for food is always on the rise, businesses are always looking for more opportunities to earn money. Bananas have a remarkably high global export value of an estimate of 7 billion dollars (about $22 per person in the US) per year (Banana Price Crunch), making it a stay as an economic bedrock for several countries. Behind all the fresh and tasty bananas there are the banana producers, which generally all work hard in banana fields each day, facing all kinds of natural disasters and risking their lives harvesting, planting and more. The farmers can only gain around one to three percent of the banana’s retail price, only around $3 dollars, the other ninety seven percent goes to export and other businesses (Peeling Back Truth).

Figure 2 Supermarket in Australia drops banana price to $1 per kilogram Source: Honan Kim, ABC

The fight for low prices

The fight for low prices in different businesses are threatening banana farmers, with the price of fertilizers and exports increasing, the price of bananas stays the same or increases by barely anything. The global prices of bananas are pushed down as retailers keep on competing and pushing the prices down, trying to attract customers by loss-leader strategy (Banana Price Crunch), which is when the product is being sold at a price lower than its market price, it helps attract new customers and is often used by new businesses (Banton 2021). When consumers are enjoying low price products and the business are earning new customers, the farmers are suffering on the other hand due to the low pay. The low price sold in supermarkets leads the retailers needing a lower supply source, and it is barely enough for the farmer’s production and export fees. There are at least 800,000 families across Latin America and the Caribbean working on banana fields and depending on the low pay to survive (Banana Price Crunch). The competition of low prices might lead to the farmers losing their land and jobs when there honestly are not a lot of alternatives to them.

Unfair trade and wages dragging farmers into poverty

Except from bananas, other farmers around the world such as Ghana, west Africa, the Caribbean… also experience unfair pay the richest nations such as have drove them into poverty. The richer countries were not trying to help the developing countries and on the controversial is using their old ways to try to take out as much money from the developing counties as possible. They pick on weaker countries that basically could not defend themselves and “extract the maximum possible concessions” (The Irish Times). The farmers in poorer countries often find themselves stuck in poverty more than farmers in richer countries as they are lacking basic education, healthcare and housing. The farmers in poorer areas use cheap medicines and lack clean water and sanitation. The stronger countries trying to pull out money from developing countries make it harder and harder for them to build up, forming a corrupt cycle that drags developing countries into poverty.

 

Living and working conditions of farmers

The living conditions of farmers

The farmers need to live in precarious conditions despite the low pay. In Central America, several coffee farms have farmers living in warehouses where 40-60 farmers need to live together (Zamora 2013). The warehouses lack security, protection, and basic privacy needs. Intruders could easily break into the warehouses and steal the extremely limited amount of money they have.  The farmers have very constrained access to clean water and needless to say zero electricity or WI-FI. The farmers also have insufficient sanitation, they have limited toilets and sometimes need to use coffee fields as bathrooms. Showers are often not found, and the farmers need to wash themselves at the nearby lakes (roast magazine). Showing how unsanitary their housing is, this could possibly lead to deadly germs and viruses infecting the farmers, affecting their body conditions because of the shortage of medical support.

 

 

Figure 3 up to 60 farmers need to live together in warehouses that lack privacy. Source: Zamora Miguel, roast magazine.

 

Working conditions of farmers

Farmers who work on farms work 10 hours per day and up half of the workers exceed 14-hours per day (Grodman 2020), standing below the boiling sun, the environments are suffering. The coffee farmers in Guatemala can possibly be required to harvest up to 45 kilograms of coffee beans per day. The environment that farmers work in is also highly hazarded, with the consistent high amount of exposure to agrochemicals and shortage of protective equipment for different productions (Grodman 2020). Some farmers try to use banana leaves to cover themselves in order to protect their skin from agrochemicals such as pesticides, which increases the risk of cancer. The farmers face danger by working in the fields each day, due to the of the lack of protective equipment, some experience symptoms including “headaches, fever, dizziness, red eyes, stomach aches, nausea, vomiting, trembling, shaking, itching, burning nostrils, fatigue, and aching bones.” (Food Empowerment Project)

Young age farmers

It is estimated that around 30% of the coffee bean farmers are below the age of 15, a shockingly sizable percentage of people. With more than 60% of children at the age of 14 needing to quit school in order to work in fields, and children starting to farm at the early age of 8. “All over the world in coffee countries, the occurrence of children working on the farm during harvest is unfortunately common” (Zamora 2013). As the children have extraordinarily little power to fight back, the farm owners take advantage of them by giving them very little wage. Using them as a source of cheap labor as they cannot defend themselves. “As farmers need to meet a daily production mass, some of the farmers are imposed to take their children to work with them” (Zamora 2013). Children in the fields also reported that they were being sexually harassed, according to Food Empowerment Project’s report.

 

 

Solutions to unfair trade

  

Figure 4 using the Fairtrade premium, the rice farmers used some of the money to construct a crafts and sewing centre for women and girls. Source: Didier Gentilhomme, Fairtrade

Fair trade label

The Fairtrade label focuses on helping farmers gain fair pay through fair prices that they deserve and try to ensure their human rights. Around 2 million farmers worldwide are involved in Fairtrade, and more a hundred countries partake in the Fairtrade program with the minimum of 30,000 products that are having the Fairtrade label (Fairtrade website). Products include coffee beans, bananas, herbs, ice-cream, cacao chocolate, honey, nuts and many more. Fairtrade finds the core component first which is the minimum price, ensuring the farmers that send their products through Fairtrade will at least gain the lowest price. The farmers are gathered together, and Fairtrade gives them an additional amount of money that farmers can use to invest, they could use it for more sustainable farming, reinvest to themselves by constructing wells to provide them clean water or even build hospitals to cure them from sicknesses. Fairtrade labels also guarantee the quality of products to the consumers, it also gives a more positive perception of brands to the consumers when they buy products that carry it.

Trade laws

Countries have abolished laws to help and prevent unfair trade, the European Parliament have set new trade rules such as setting the “minimum protection standards prohibiting specific unfair practices and applying to companies with a turnover below €350 million” (European Parliament 2019). This rule will ban all refusals of written contracts, last-minute cancellations, unilateral or retroactive changes to contracts etc… (European Parliament 2019). The World Trade Organization also helps farmers by launching agriculture agreements, which includes domestic support that will raise or guarantee farmgate prices and farmers’ incomes. This helps the farmers have a steady income which will help their lives a lot, however, a handful of farmers from developing areas are not benefited as their countries have not set rules yet.

 

Figure 5 A local wet market in Hong Kong. Source: Ho Sally, Green Queen

How can we help?

Excluding the support from Fairtrade labels and trade laws, the most important building blocks for farmers to gain equal pay are the people, the consumers that would go and buy products from farmers (Sustain). To help the farmer consumers could go to local stores rather than large supermarkets. In China there are local wet markets that the public could buy a wide variety of ingredients. Going to local shops helps farmers as they can set their own price and are not forced to pay export fees and need less packaging, leading to the farmers to receive better pay.

 

The problem of unfair trade is truly existing, from the scarce pay farmers and their families rely on to the extreme living hazards that they must go through each day when working. With several important SDGs connected to this issue such as decent work and economic growth, good health and well-being and clean water and sanitation, the problem must be solved. The issues of unfair trade do not only affect the farmers, controversially, it has a profound impact on the world a very significant number of humans. Food is our main source of energy, without it we could not work, sustain, or live, as it is one of the most important parts of people’s lives. People should pay more attention to unfair trade, for the farmers, for the people, and for the world.

 

 

Works Cited

Barrett, Bill. “Fair Trade a Fair Shake for Farmers.” Guelph Mercury, 23 Aug 2008. SIRS Issues Researcher, https://explore.proquest.com/sirsissuesresearcher/document/2267889386?accountid=4047.

Bizfluent. Barbara Bean-Mellinger, bizfluent.com/facts-7631166-fair-trade-farmers.html.

 

Borden Magezine. 12 Nov. 2020, www.borgenmagazine.com/labor-abuse-and-exploitation-the-dark-side-of-ecuadors-banana-industry/.

European Parliament [Europe]. 11 Mar. 2019, www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20190307STO30717/protecting-farmers-and-small-firms-from-unfair-trading-practices.

 

Fairtrade. 26 Jan. 2022, www.fairtrade.net/news/a-banana-price-crunch-is-hitting-banana-farmers-and-workers-hard-fairtrades-silvia-campos-explains-why. Accessed 18 May 2022.

Fairtrade. Https://www.fairtrade.org.uk.

 

FairTrade. 10 Apr. 2022, www.fairtradeamerica.org/news-insights/unfair-trade-is-at-the-root-of-poverty/.

“Farmworkers Left Behind: The Human Cost of Coffee Production.” Roastmagazine, dailycoffeenews.com/2013/07/17/farmworkers-left-behind-the-human-cost-of-coffee-production/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20coffee%20pickers%2C%20migrant%20workers%20and%20farmworkers,widespread%20labor%20violations%20in%20coffee%20farms%20in%20Hawaii.

 

“Five Ways to Support Our Farmers in the Time of Covid-19.” Sustain, Vicki Hird, 24 Mar. 2020, www.sustainweb.org/blogs/mar20_five_ways_to_help_farmers/.

Food Empowerment Project. foodispower.org/our-food-choices/bananas/.

Investopedia. 27 May 2021, www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lossleader.asp.

The Irish Times. 12 Dec. 2005, www.irishtimes.com/opinion/unfair-trade-keeps-developing-farmers-in-poverty-1.1286621.

Johnson, Gale. “Agriculture Economics.” Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/agricultural-economics/Government-intervention.

 

World Bank. 12 Nov. 2014, www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/11/12/for-up-to-800-million-rural-poor-a-strong-world-bank-commitment-to-agriculture.

WorldBankBlogs. 18 Sept. 2015, blogs.worldbank.org/psd/should-governments-support-development-agricultural-insurance-markets#:~:text=1%20Improve%20farmers%E2%80%99%20creditworthiness%20and%20open%20the%20door,who%20are%20typically%20hit%20hardest%20by%20natural%20disasters.