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This program is the only way we are able to access credit. Ten coworkers and I took out a loan together, and we’ve invested the funds in starting a communal farm whose produce will not only enable us to pay back the loan, but also to improve our options for development.
--- Cleber Ocampo The Association of Small Banana Producers of El Guabo (“El Guabo”), which began with just 14 small farmers in 1998, now boasts over 450 members. This association was one of the founders of the Fair Trade banana movement and is a prime example of farmer organization and empowerment. El Guabo sent its first container of bananas to Europe on consignment in 1998, hoping for a good arrival. And by 2009, the group has grown to export more than 40 containers of Fair Trade Certified bananas every week.
The Fair Trade premium has enabled El Guabo to establish various social and productive programs.
Organic Certification:
Many of El Guabo’s members have achieved organic certification, while its conventional members have also made great strides by eliminating herbicides and increasing the use of natural pest controls. Fair Trade standards are, acre by acre, moving a banana growing region away from a culture of indiscriminate agrochemical use and toward integrated pest management and respect for nature.
Sustainable Management:
El Guabo has also spent considerable effort integrating “agro-forestal” farmers into their association. These farmers live on the fringes of the tropical forests and cultivate bananas, limes, cacao and other subsistence crops under the canopy of trees. El Guabo helps the farmers achieve and maintain organic certification, thereby protecting the fragile forests bordering their farms, and provides a good price for the few boxes of bananas each farm produces. Without that higher Fair Trade price, most of these farmers would be forced to farm the land more intensively and encroach on the surrounding tropical forest. Instead, Fair Trade has helped the members of El Guabo sustain an important balance in the local ecosystem.
Health Program:
The members of El Guabo elected to contribute $170,580 to run clinics providing health care to banana producers, workers, their families, and other community members. Producers also receive health insurance, and senior citizens receive regular checkups. El Guabo also coordinates with the Ministry of Public Health to bring medical teams into communities that would otherwise have no access to health services.
Rigoberto Tinoco, a producer with the Arenillas member farm, recently got a checkup, lab tests, and echo sonogram, and was given medicine to alleviate conditions revealed by these tests. “This is the first time that we senior citizens have received friendly, quality medical attention,” says Tinoco.
Education Project:
This year El Guabo dedicated $93,360 to support 16 rural elementary schools. Fair Trade premiums fund the salary of at least one teacher in each of these schools, as well as the training for teachers to adapt the curriculum to their students’ local context. Computers were donated to all of the schools.
Aid for Workers and Producers:
El Guabo has committed $30,000 to a mortuary fund to be used to offset the large expenses incurred by families in the case of the death of a producer, producer’s spouse, or producer’s child. This year El Guabo used an additional $76,700 for activities such as organizing general assemblies, putting on a Christmas party and providing weekly food baskets for farm workers.
Farm and Business Improvement:
El Guabo used $430,580 for two important business investments: 1) Contributing local funds to complement funds donated by the Government of the Netherlands to implement the Precision Agriculture Model of farming at El Guabo, furthering farmer’s understanding of Integrated Pest Management techniques, and 2) to invest in the farm’s financial future by purchasing shares in Agrofair, the import company that buys most El Guabo bananas.
An additional $565,000 has been dedicated to making improvements at 15 of El Guabo member’s farms. Distribution of these funds is based in part on annual production—a strong incentive for producers to continue innovating and improving in order to increase production. Furthermore, $20,000 of the farm improvement fund is earmarked for environmental studies and projects.
Micro-Credit:
El Guabo deposited $50,000 in “seed capital” in the Azuayo Garden Savings and Loan Cooperative, thus giving cooperative members access to loans.
Support for Workers’ Associations:
El Guabo contributed $137,400 to the Associations of Stevedores, Sorters, and Employees of El Guabo, a group working to strengthen the organizations. |
Fair Trade Fresh Fruit 
