Most people love to eat bananas, they are available to us throughout the year, and they never out of season. Bananas have been one of the contentious issues of Fair Trade. It is one of the products were the boundaries of Fair Trade and its criteria are pushed to its limits. Fair Trade works exceptionally well with coffee beans- small individual producers. However, bananas are often produced in large plantation estates and trying to define Fair Trade bananas is difficult and grey. Alex is reading a book at the moment about the banana wars written by the former CEO of Fair Trade. Large companies were initially sabotaging the trade of Fairtrade bananas- holding the shipments of bananas up at the borders. There are 1 million Fair Trade bananas consumed in Germany everyday, so it is big business. In New Zealand there is a Go bananas movement to get Fair Trade bananas into New Zealand. See http://www.checkoutfairtrade.org.nz.
