Despite the cost of living crisis, the price of a bunch of bananas in British supermarkets is no higher today than it was three decades ago. Every country in the world with cheaper prices than the UK has its own producers of the fruit.
The government has now been accused of pursuing an irresponsible post-Brexit policy that could reduce the price of bananas further in the shops, at the cost of the livelihoods of thousands of workers on small plantations in some of Africa’s poorest countries.
According to Afruibana, the Pan-African association of banana producers and exporters, all the indications are that the UK government will be ditching the EU promise to protect them. The UK government is now engaging in a specific banana tariff review as part of its trade deal with the Andean countries – Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – which the African producers say could wipe out businesses in Ghana, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, countries whose economies are among the least diversified in the world.
Source: theguardian.com