A damning report published this week by development agency ActionAid suggests that the low prices enjoyed by UK supermarket shoppers are the result of a denial of basic human rights in some of the world’s poorest countries, along with poor wages and job insecurity.

ActionAid, which works in more than 40 countries, has called upon the UK government to set up an independent regulator and calls for supermarkets to take concrete steps to address the impact their buying practices are having on poverty-stricken overseas workers.

“Labour rights abuses in supermarket supply chains remain systematic, and in fact they are becoming more severe...a decade of voluntary attempts to curb the negative impacts of these practices has failed,” the charity reported.

Costa Rican banana growers were singled out as suffering from the intense price war which rages between UK retailers, a war that began to rage anew last week. Fairtrade used to be seen as a way out. But as loose and prepacked Fairtrade is now also being benchmarked against non-Fairtrade fruit on the UK’s retail shelves, even that safety net for the select few may disappear.

As all regular readers of this column will know, I am not normally swayed by pressure-group arguments. This piece of research may or may not be 100 per cent accurate, but if all it does is focus a few minds on the real impact of a local price scuffle, then it is well worth doing.

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