Columbia Fair Trade

Colombia has come a long way in regards to their agriculture and their affiliations with Chiquita’s bananas and social and environmental standards. Today there exists fair trade to ensure ethically produced agriculture typically coming from developing countries, i.e. the banana. Blanca Rosa once declared, “For us Fairtrade means conserving and improving our land and looking after the environment, it means improving the air that we breathe... .” In order to abandon the old life Chiquita was affiliated with, they joined the fair trade bandwagon believing that it would gain public approval. To be certified fair trade is to be a member of one of several national or international federations, for example Chiquita bananas is a part of Rainforest

Of those 19 modules 11 of them are directly related to standards regarding the environment. They concern themselves in teaching about conserving biodiversity through reducing the use of chemicals, protecting forests, preventing drift of agrochemicals to ecosystems, protecting wild animals, keeping shade trees, controlling soil erosion, maintaining soil fertility, using water rationally, keeping your water clean, preventing and dealing with accidents, and managing waste. These modules are directly related to building a sustainable

It is evident in numerous countries where fair trade does not exist. Banana farming is not simple, the banana plant is in fact a very vulnerable and sensitive plant easily affected by “infection, poor drainage and wind damage.” Bananas are, of course, only able to grow in tropical countries that are exposed to high volumes of “pests, tropical storms and strong winds.” Fair trade has entered countries like Colombia offering a sustainable way of producing bananas, cutting costs of production, and helping farmers win the pricing wars in supermarkets. Farmers are often forced to lower the cost of their bananas so that they may enter the supermarkets, however, in forcing their prices to go down they are often making far less money than to cover the cost of production. By infringing on the prices and forcing farmers into a delicate position where they are hardly able to pay for their cost of production, either these farmers are forced into closing down their farms or cutting corners. Cutting corners involves, rather than round the clock backbreaking work going into protecting the banana plants, a high usage of pesticides starts being incorporated, rather than effectively protecting the environment getting rid of waste responsibly or finding a water source that will not negatively impact villagers of the town. Additionally, fair trade allows for these