Equifruit helps Longo’s switch to Fairtrade

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News

Equifruit helps Longo’s switch to Fairtrade 2 New research has Chiquita out in front 4 INIA joins global effort on TR4 resistance 5 Port launches super sustainable banana 8 Floating a new idea 9

Features

The path to a better future 10 AgroFair marks 25 years of Fairtrade 15 Molina looks ahead to calmer waters 16-17 Del Monte makes the right moves 18 Colombian sector shows its resilience 20 Martignani offers Black Sigatoka solution 21 CSR yields results for Costa Rica 22 India builds its export business 24

Analysis

A changing climate in many ways 26-27 Sustainable bananas take cooperation 28 Prices must include real costs 29

Bananamania!

The Last Bite 30-31

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Chiquita BC Corbana 23 Del Monte 19 Dole 3 Goodfarmer IFC INI Farms 25 Martignani 32 Port International 6-7 Reybanpac 33 SmartHarvest 13

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Bananas are vital, but undervalued

As our special publication shows, many of the world’s leading banana suppliers and marketers appreciate the need to create a new understanding of the product’s value.

Bananas are vital to many people in so many parts of the world. And it doesn’t take an economist to figure out that their phenomenal success as a product – with or without the branding – is also part of their inherent weakness. The widely sold variety Cavendish is, genetically speaking, a mirror image of itself, so it struggles to fight off some very troublesome diseases. Its supply chains are efficient, but many are in need of investment. Buyers and consumers want so much more with every year, but only a few seem willing to pay more for those additional things. It’s certainly not a trade for the fainthearted.

Speak to anyone in the banana business and they know what the problems are. Every few months, a mainstream news outlet will pick up on the sound of alarm bells, and ring around a few people to get a story about the fruit’s potential demise. In some respects, the prediction is a valid one, but they never forecast a precise date for that impending disaster. That’s because it might actually come sooner than expected, but equally the chances are it will be later than they expect.

The narrative running through this, our first Fresh Focus Banana special, is about uncovering hidden value in a product category that, despite its success, doesn’t seem able to lose its reputation for being on slightly shaky ground. Is the perfect banana out there? Quite possibly. But the work being done now to make them more environmentally sustainable, more ethically traded, more resistance to disease, has to continue. And In the meantime, money’s too tight not to mention. _

Mike Knowles, Editor Follow me on Twitter: @mikefruitnet