Comments on: Going bananas! Chiquita supplies guns to save environment?

By: Top Banana

Top Banana — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:20:44 +0000

OkÃ© USA is buying all of its bananas currently from El Guabo, an association of over 300 small and medium organic fair trade banana growers. Some of these growers do sell bananas to some of the large buyers. The difference OkÃ© offers is evident in several ways.

First, our majority owner, AgroFair is 1/2 owned by the growers, including El Guabo. This means that in addition to getting fair trade pricing, they have a say in how we operate and a dividend from AgroFair profits.

Second, the AgroFair family has a nonprofit sister organization, AFAD, that has supported the development of El Guabo and other grower organizations.

Finally, OkÃ© USA never pays paramilitary militias or other armed forces. And, we never ship weapons, only fair trade organic bananas!

By: Siel

Siel — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:42:03 +0000

Manolo to Manuel — If you’re going to spam comment on a blog pretending to be 5 different people, it helps to actually use different IP addresses that’re located in the countries each of your impersonations say they’re from. If all the comments come from one computer, it simply makes you look like the idiot you are. Clearly, you’re passionate about debunking fair trade — but can’t actually prove your point without resorting to lies and comment spamming.

Needless to say, your IP address, 196.40.21.60, is now going to be restricted from commenting here. Thanks for the laughs.

By: Manuel Atoche

Manuel Atoche — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:49:28 +0000

I donÂ´t know much about the reality outside my country, Peru, but I am a organic banana grower from the North side of Peru, in Sullana.
I have 5 years of selling my fruit to Dole and have been always very good with me, my family and the community I live on, Saman.

They helped us to become Fairtrade certified, they trained us to obtain our own organic certification, and now they are teching us to process and pack our own bananas. They had done a lot for Sullana and Saman. This city was dead before Dole came, now the quality of life for me, my family and my community had improved a lot.

Please do not talk bad things about a company if you do not know what they do for people like me in Peru.

Manuel Atoche
Saman – Sullana
Peru.

By: Juan SantamarÃa

Juan SantamarÃa — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:43:39 +0000

I agree with Julio Jaramillo!
FLO certified our farm in Costa Rica a year ago. In 2004 we fired an employee because he was unefficient and reluctant to use his personal protection equipment, we paid him according to the law. He tried to obtain more money from us saying that if we donÂ´t pay him he will go to the Court. We didnÂ´t pay and we have to go to the Court and explain the whole thing. We will win tha case because we did it according to the law.
A labour court trial in Costa Rica can last years.

FLO was noticed by a local Union (Unions in Latin America are USELESS, believe me, USELESS, they are like parasits of our society), about this situation and FLO decertified us. Even when it havenÂ´t been detemined if we are guilty or not by the autorities in Costa Rica, FLO decided by themselves that we are guilty.

Who they think they are? God???, please, somebody have to unveil the reality to consumers, Fairtrade is not FAIR anymore, it is a Private Club, as stated before by Jaramillo, with political and economical interests.

By: Julio Jaramillo

Julio Jaramillo — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:28:18 +0000

FLO is like a PRIVATE CLUB, if you like them, they will certify you. It doesnÂ´t really matter if you are complying 100% with their standards, it is just about politics.

I applied for Fairtrade certification of my organic banana farm in Colombia and they just said no. They never gave me a good reason. But they certified other farms in Colombia related with a powerful family group in this country.