Banana farmers in Dominica are turning their backs on Fairtrade in huge numbers, according to Mitchell Roberts, chairman of the National Fairtrade Organisation of Dominica.

He said that the number of active Fairtrade farmers in the country has fallen dramatically from 600 to 350 in the last year.

Roberts told the country’s state-owned radio station that the challenges faced by farmers on the market have forced many of them to move away.

He said: “The cost of inputs escalated, the cost of packaging material escalated, labour has always been a high cost and because of that farmers feel that they were not making money and their cost of production is high and the returns they get was not reflective of the amount of effort they put, so some farmers definitely had to leave it.”

Roberts refused to attribute any blame to the country’s National Fairtrade Organisation and called for support for the industry in dealing with issues in the global marketplace.

He said: “Support in terms of the high cost of input, support in terms of getting cheaper packaging material... If we can get assistance in that regard, then that is going to help the farmer to make ends meet.”

One industry source told FPJ: “There have been widespread reports that Fairtrade growers are abandoning those principles and going back to traditional selling for better prices.

“I’ve seen a lot of companies, not naming names, who have encouraged them to give it up. There is a definite danger that some of the co-operatives could break up and be undermined.

“Fairtrade is still static in growth and will continue to be so unless some of the supermarkets change their attitudes towards it, or Sainsbury’s or Waitrose increases their volumes of Fairtrade significantly.”

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