Fairtrade Foundation leader Harriet Lamb and Dominica prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit called on the UK government to secure
£50 million of investment for the foundation’s work over the next five years. She told MPs in a House of Commons committee inquiry into Fairtrade and development that the money is needed to change attitudes so that no one pays growers returns below cost of production.
“If there is a movement that has commercial viability that wants to provide smaller, independent producers with a more stable return for their crop then that is fantastic,” said Del Monte Fresh Produce UK’s md Peter Miller. “However, I am concerned that the Fairtrade Foundation has asked the government for £50m. Get it from the private sector, not the tax-payer. This is business and on occasion, the banana market is lower than the cost of production.”
Miller also posed the question of whether, with demand for Fairtrade outstripping supply, there could be problems with fraudulent trade of products deemed to be Fairtrade.
Others were also concerned about who is footing the bill for price cuts. “With some retailers offering 20 per cent discounts on Faitrade products over the fortnight or doing price matching, we don’t know how this affects the margins back to growers,” said Dickon Poole of JP Fruit. “The whole point of the exercise is meant to be getting better returns back to growers, but products seem to be getting involved in the price battle affecting commodity products.”
And this week Sir John Compton, the prime minister of St Lucia, told Sainsbury’s md Justin King: “You have saved the banana farmers of St Lucia.” He was referring to the retailer’s commitment to stock 100 per cent Fairtrade bananas this year.
This week, Waitrose demonstrated its Fairtrade credentials by becoming the first UK supermarket to do just that.
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