How Can Bananas Be 29 Cents a Pound?

You may have noticed Chiquita prints labels on bananas from Honduras over pink ribbons supporting breast cancer research. Possibly the company has seen research by Kantar Consulting in the UK. Kantar's Purpose 2020 study found "almost two-thirds of millennials and centennials...express a preference for brands that have a point of view and stand for something." Consultants went on to conclude consumers expect brands to use their social power for positive change.

      Nowadays, the world has a wide variety of models that affect positive change. Religious missionaries and JFK's Peace Corps show how to bring education and skill training to impoverished areas. Experienced nongovernmental organizations rush water, food, and medical quick-fix support when earthquakes and other natural disasters strike, while international banks grant low-cost loans to finance the projects and equipment for long-term solutions. Foundations, universities, and major stockholders pressured South Africa to end apartheid by withdrawing investments from South African companies. Supermarket shoppers lent their economic power to Cesar Chavez's campaign to better conditions for lettuce pickers.

     The mothers, children, and other relatives walking, riding, and floating north to escape violence and poverty in Central America crave positive social change. According to ethicalconsumer.org, United Fruit, now Chiquita, and Standard Fruit, now Dole, came to Central America in the 1890s, because fertile land and government corruption provided excellent conditions for their banana businesses. In time, grocery chains habitually began to use bananas as loss leaders, offering them at low prices to attract shoppers who would buy other items, such as greeting cards that can be $3 or more, at profitable prices. These shoppers now are in a position to pressure supermarkets to buy from suppliers who treat workers fairly. Customers, who work for a living themselves, understand employees are entitled to fair compensation for their work. Those who climb trees to harvest bananas in Guatemala cannot be expected to subsidize grocers by accepting low wages, poor education and housing, and medical problems from unsafe working conditions.

     Today's greater access to worldwide information prompts both consumer concern for the exploitation of labor in foreign countries and exposure to the consequences of government corruption. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in Kenya recognizes foreign companies involved in corrupt practices "ruin our country." At the same time, what company wants to risk prosecution for bribing government officials for a construction contract in Brazil or to pay off officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, if the same commodities are available in Australia?

     Migrant refugees don't want to walk miles to seek asylum from violence and poverty. Consumers and businesses have the power to change the conditions that can help them stay home.