More sustainable and resilient banana supply chains: Fairtrade’s new offer
Our new offer to achieve more sustainable and resilient banana supply chainsis a tailored approach for businesses committed to pay living wages across banana supply chains.
It is composed of a new Living Wage Reference Price, and a tailored Banana Dashboard which allows businesses to explore and report on targeted areas to gain unique insights on specific banana sourcing.
Closing the living wages gap
Low wages are deeply-rooted systemic issue, highly dependent on context and - in the long term - on collective action.
There is no denying there is currently a living wage gap. In order to support closing it – and enable committed companies to get involved - we have worked with local experts to calculate a Living Wage Reference Price and offer a concrete way for this to be paid directly to workers.
How does it work?
By paying the Fairtrade Living Wage Reference Price
per box, workers on a banana plantation can earn at least a living wage as per the applicable Anker Research Institute benchmark.
We have set a Fairtrade Living Wage Reference Prices for each major banana producing country. You can view the prices per origin here. They are based on our calculation of a Fairtrade Living Wage Differential. This differential is the amount still needed to be paid after the Fairtrade Minimum Price and Premium for a producer to earn a living wage.
The Fairtrade Living Wage Differential will be paid through the Fairtrade Premium Committee and
received as a bonus that brings immediate worker benefits. The Premium Committees are uniquely placed to ensure the distribution of
the bonus, to audit this, and report on the benefits.
In the long term
A living wage can only be sustained by plantation management through long term commitment of maintaining and growing the sourcing volumes on Fairtrade terms. Supply chain actors may also commit to support long term social dialogue to make decent livelihoods the norm.
In the long term, the Fairtrade Minimum Price is aiming to capture the full cost of living wages overtime. This measure will be coupled with an gradual increase of the current Fairtrade Base Wage from current 70% to 100% of the Living Wage benchmark. As a result, temporary Fairtrade Living Wage Differential payments will decrease, as plantation payrolls take over. Fairtrade will support workers in building capacities to strengthen social dialogue, improve work conditions and increase salaries through collective bargaining. As ARI benchmarks are refreshed annually, the wage gaps may decrease or increase. We would measure this through accurate wage data reporting and analysis, with our local team’s expertise.
The Fairtrade Banana Dashboard: Supply Chain Reporting and Visualisation
The Fairtrade Banana dashboard provides a rich set of the latest information available on Fairtrade bananas. It is a resource for anyone interested in a fairer banana sector – whether a cooperative, trader or retailer – to learn more about Fairtrade producers, the advantages of Fairtrade, and opportunities to deepen relationships and impact, for instance on living wages, climate adaptation and other areas.
You’ll find information on:
the breadth and scope of Fairtrade banana producers, including by type of organisation and country;
key Fairtrade benefits and impact, including the value of Fairtrade Premium and how it is used by banana producers, as well as insights from third-party research;
insights on human rights and environmental topics based on aggregated audit data;
results of successful projects and programmes, such as the Productivity Improvement Programme in Latin America and a workers’ rights project in Ghana; and
details on Fairtrade’s sustainable banana offer, including services that are part of routine support to producers, or available as customised services for specific supply chains.
The global dashboard is available for all. We can also create a
customised dashboard for companies interested in data related to their
own supply chains.
To get involved the first step is to contact your National Fairtrade Organisation. If no organisation is available in your country, you can drop us a line via our contact page.
Sustainable and resilient bananas are a journey
Driving change in banana requires a holistic approach, it is not only possible to tackle wages, for example worker rights, similarly, to improve incomes for smallholder farmers climate must be at the centre of the approach.
