SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND TRADE -
A PANEL DISCUSSION

Presentation of Doris Calvo, COLSIBA

Good afternoon,

five minutes is very little time when you want to talk about many years of struggle and suffering in the banana industry.

All along history we, women, have been pioneers in agricultural matters, and the case of bananas was not an exception. When we started working in the banana industry it was a new labour for us, and our aim was so to get a bit of an extra income for our families. But we didn’t know that this kind of work could bring as many health problems. Yes, I’m talking about health, because here we’ve heard of trading, labelling ... but health has not been mentioned yet. If we want to have a sustainable production, we must have healthy workers first.

In my opinion, agrochemicals are a major problem that our women and men, and worst of all, our children are suffering.

I don’t know much about technical matters, and I haven’t brought any slides or pictures to show you but I do have a clear message about the conditions of women working in the banana industry; they are the real producers, they work day after day to make that nice fruit available to you.

We don’t really know what a fair banana is; if we want to have a fair banana and a sustainable production we must solve some questions first: freedom of association, salaries -insufficient to cover all the social burdens we must bear-, working ours -12 hours working in the packaging centres, in contact with agrochemicals. Is this a sustainable production?

I’m very happy for being invited here to express the feeling of our working women.

We would like to at least reduce the use of chemicals -we know that it is almost impossible to completely eliminate them because of the poor soil condition; If we were allowed to freely get organised, we could try to struggle as we are doing here now.

My country is supposed to be under a democratic regime, but I can’t see any respect for the freedom of association under trade unions.

Last month, I took part in a campaign to support our workers’ freedom of association in trade unions. It was a hard and exhausting struggle, but the thought of our women and men, and mostly of our children, gave me the strength to keep going.

Today I feel happy because we achieved that agreement; but this is an agreement with many efforts behind, and I still wonder, where is social justice? How can we call this fair trade when we see every day they are exploiting our main forests? Is this environmental consciousness? Is this sustainable production?

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to hurt anybody, I just want to express my feelings as a banana working woman.

It is hard to see those men, already old after 40 years of work and unable to get a new job. They were not born old though, they got old working in the plantations. Who is going to give them a retirement pension? What are we going to do once they are old and sick? Is this a sustainable production and fair trade?

I hope the IBC in May will be a chance for us to speak out and to make our voice listened by people like you, people who understand our struggle.

I am aware of the relevance of this fruit in the whole world, but a fruit cannot ruin our world.

I would like to than you all once more; I’ll be glad to answer any question you have about banana working women.

Thank you.