Bitter aftertaste: Oxfam study of pineapple and banana cropping

Conventional tropical fruit for German supermarkets is being produced under horrifying ecological and social conditions.This is the picture presented by the development organisation Oxfam in a report dealing with pineapple production in Costa Rica and banana production in Ecuador. Criticism is also directed at the Rainforest Alliance that certified several of the plantations under investigation.

For the report Oxfam researched the supply relationships of the German corporations Aldi, Schwarz (Lidl/Kaufland), Edeka and Rewe and it specifically examined plantations that produce goods for these chains. The Oxfam staff interviewed workers, spoke to experts from trade unions, NGOs and the government. Only one operator gave permission to inspect a plantation.

The criticism in the report is focused on three areas: the price pressure exerted by the chains on their suppliers, the working conditiions and the use of dangerous pesticides and their effects on the environment.

Cheaper and cheaper – with costs rising

The four corporations targeted by Oxfam account for 85% of turnover in the retail food trade in Germany. Oxfam maintains they use their market power to keep prices low. As a result, the import price of pineapple between 2002 and 2014, adjusted for inflation, almost halved from €1.34 to €0.71 per kilo, while the production costs rose in the countries of origin.  According to  Oxfam, the price of bananas has also fallen continuously over the last 15 years. “The price and cost pressure of the supermarket chains is one of the reasons why the statutory minimum price of bananas in Ecuador is being massively undercut“ - a statement in the report that is corroborated by banana producers themselves. At the same time, the price pressure is creating precarious working conditions on the plantations.

Wages not enough to live on

The report tells us that on the pineapple plantations in Costa Ricas the indigenous workers receive the statutory minimum wage: “But the minimum wage relates to working for 8 hours. Many of the workers surveyed are, however, paid on a performance basis and they have to work for up to 12 hours to get the minimum wage.“ The trade union maintains that the minimum wage is not enough to live on.

It points out that illegal workers from Nicaragua are paid far less. They work in many of the plantations in the north of the country, employed via middlemen and without social security of any kind. In Ecuador too the minimum wage is not a living wage. Examples in the report document that statutory minimum standards are not adhered to. Trade union rights in both countries are violated on a massive scale. “Many employees speak about dismissal for belonging to a trade union.“ The report tells us that independent worker representation doesn't exist on any of the 20 plantations investigated.

Workers sprayed with pesticide

Planes are used to spray the huge area covered by the plantations. According to Oxfam, this process involves substances that are categorised as extremely toxic or probably carcinogenic. Others, like Paraquat, have for a long time been banned in the EU. They pollute not only the groundwater but also make the workers ill, because spraying is carried out even when the workers are in the fields. Also, prescribed time limits before going back onto the the fields are often not adhered to.

“Many of the people interviewed reported a high rate of disabilities, miscarriages and cancer in the vicinity of the plantations,“ says the  Oxfam report and it referred to a study by Austrian occupational health professionals. In the case of conventional Ecuadorian male and female banana workers they discovered that stomach and bowel disease was six to eight times more frequent than in the casae of of workers in organic agriculture. Other symptoms like dizziness,  vomiting and diarrhoea, stinging eyes and skin rashes were also much more prevalent.

Sustainability – words not deeds

“The supermarkets subject the appearance of imported fruit to very close inspection and reject whole consignments if there is the slightest blemish. But they allow the people who harvested the fruit to be poisoned,“ says Franziska Humbert, the author of the study and specialist in employment law at Oxfam Deutschland. As long as eight years ago Oxfam revealed and made public the horrifying conditions in pineapple growing in Costa Rica. But Humbert comes to the conclusion that “after eight years, the conditions there have hardly improved.“

The only thing that has improved is the sustainability PR of the chains. They are all members of the Business Social Compliance Initiative, an association of European trading and brand-name companies that has the aim of creating good working conditions along the whole supply chain.

“At the same time as  the supermarket chains are putting downward pressure on the prices paid to suppliers and cutting their costs, they're boasting to consumers about their sustainability with more and more logos,“ writes Franziska Humbert. You often see  the Rainforest Alliance  frog stuck on bananas and pineapples – and on coffee and cocoa too. The majority of the plantations (and their abuses) investigated by Oxfam  have been certified by the RA. „Our research on location is evidence, however, that issuing certification is not solving the biggest problems like pollution through pesticides and the violation of labour laws,“ writes Oxfam about the RA logo.

Reactions: on paper everything is hunky-dory

Oxfam asked the chains concerned and the RA for a response and it published some of their reactions. Thus ALDI SÜD quoted pages of replies from its suppliers who, of course,  reject the criticisms made by their employees to Oxfam.

RA stated the investigations it had undertaken had so far not confirmed the Oxfam allegations. The RA said that, in contrast to its own comprehensive audits,the results in the report by Oxfam Deutschland  were based only on interviews with workers. Oxfam issued a statement refuting this  and wondered why the RA did not incorporate any of the trade unions in its audits.

With the information from this report Oxfam launched the campaign “Fit für fair“ and chose Lidl as its target, presumably because the discounter has recently made a great point of its sustainability and transparency in its PR.

And  Oxfam responded to its claims one to one with facts. For example, the Lidl statement: “Our  good prices for fruit and vegetables are made possible by means of a fully optimized process chain.“ To counter this claim, Oxfam set up a segmented banana and pineapple illustrating how little the workers receive. “Hey Lidl: optimize your process chain so that the workers get something out of it as well,“ is Oxfam's answer. The TV chef Ole Plogstedt, who supports the campaign Make Fruit Fair as an ambassador, was present while the research was being carried out in Ecuador. His conclusion: “I feel extremely angry.“

You can access more facts and figures on this topic here.