March 31st, 2015
Analysis of banana value chains and impacts on small farmers & workers
Published by Oxfam, September 29th, 2014
This blog post by Oxfam highlights the role of supermarket chains, especially discount retailers, on food prices. It is stated that German supermarket chains are partly responsible for substantially undercutting the legal minimum price for bananas in countries such as Ecuador, which has dire consequences for small agricultural producers and plantation workers. This is all according to a report (PDF) based on a study commissioned by Oxfam and carried out by the French research institution BASIC as well as on interviews with experts from Germany and from the banana-producing countries. Similar results (PDF) were found by Fairtrade on the role of British supermarkets.