Most bananas in the UK are not Fairtrade.  They are grown on large plantations where workers can be paid as little as 60p a day.  That’s not enough to live on, let alone to look after a family. So children as young as 8 years old are forced to work on the plantations to survive.

To keep the cost of the bananas low chemicals are sprayed onto the plantations from planes.  But these chemicals are extremely hazardous and they don’t just get sprayed onto the bananas, but on to the workers, their families, their food and their water supply.  They burn the skin and the eyes, and they cause nausea and dizziness.  Worst of all they lead to babies being born with terrible deformities.  Many of them simply don’t survive.

Fairtrade bananas on the other hand guarantee:

• A fair wage for workers
• No child labour
• No chemicals, or on plantations where chemicals are still applied they are used in much lower quantities and in ways that don’t impact on the health of the workers and their families.
• Protection of women’s rights
• Social premium – extra money which goes towards projects that benefit the whole community, such as schools, healthcare and disaster relief programmes.