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Kiwis are the biggest banana consumers per capita in the world. We eat 90,000 tonnes per year. That’s over 10 tonnes an hour! However – only 7% of bananas consumed in the country are Fairtrade.

Irene, from Zambia, South Africa, is a co-producer on a banana farm. The income she earns means she can have clean water and ample food, send her children to school and save to build a house. Photo: Abbie Trayler-Smith.

Bananas are our favourite fruit, but new research brings forward the unsustainability of our banana supply. Major supermarkets and banana retailers must do more to support banana farmers.

‘The Big Squeeze’ report was released yesterday by the Bureau for the Appraisal of Societal Impacts and Costs (Basic) and commissioned by Fairtrade New Zealand.

According to the Fairtrade New Zealand website, the report says that “New Zealand’s banana market is placing a significant amount of pressure on banana producing countries, with small farmers and workers suffering the most from ever-increasing costs of production over the past decade”.

Alarmingly, only 18% of the retail price of bananas is paid to farmers, whereas major supermarkets receive 40%.

The Fairtrade New Zealand website also says that the new report describes how buying Fairtrade can offset the negative impacts being felt by banana farmers:

“Fairtrade provides major economic benefits for producers with a guaranteed floor price (the Fairtrade Minimum Price) for bananas, as well as a Fairtrade Premium (an additional sum that is received by farmer cooperatives/associations, which currently sits at $1 USD per box of bananas), which is used to invest in housing, health, better environmental protection strategies and education.”

“Fairtrade is key for banana producers because it offers not only a secure and stable price for produce and for plantation workers but it also means plantations are able to improve productivity and quality through the support networks and training provided through Fairtrade,” says Molly Harriss Olson, Fairtrade CEO Australia and New Zealand.

Read the full report here, or read Fairtrade New Zealand’s news release here.

Just when we thought our Oxfam Trailwalker volunteers couldn’t get any more incredible…

Terri Wilkins and her team from First Credit Union in Whakatāne ran Checkpoint Two at the Oxfam Trailwalker this year, and have decided to donate the koha they received from doing so back to their community to help flood victims.

Here’s what Terri had to say:

How have you and your staff been affected by the recent weather?

“Edgecumbe is only about 10 minutes away from us and I’ve got a staff member that lives out there – she lost everything. I’ve got another staff member whose mother lives out there and she was a little bit luckier, but she still had to be evacuated. I’ve also have a lot of members who have been majorly affected by the rain and the floods.”

What did you decide to do with the koha you were to receive from Oxfam?

“We didn’t realise that we would receive some money for running a checkpoint, and that was not our objective anyway because of the cause that it supports. When I was asked to send through an invoice I said that’s not why we do it, and instead to make a donation to the 1XX charitable trust on our behalf, which is for the flood victims.”

She wanted to give her support to an issue that’s so close to home for her and her staff.

“When you’ve got friends and staff members that are affected by it, you want to help as much as you can. We still have to work, so unfortunately we couldn’t get out there to help do the clean-up so the next best thing that we could do was to financially assist the people that have been affected.”

And it wasn’t just the koha they donated…

“I organised for staff across all our branches to have a mufti day, so the funds from this were also donated.  At Easter time staff would normally receive an Easter treat, so I asked the staff if, instead of receiving this, would they be happy to contribute those funds to the relief fund – and they all said yes of course.”

How important do you think it is for everyone to be supporting each other in a time like this?

“It’s incredibly important, just to be able to support people when they might need a shoulder to cry on or just somebody to talk to about it all. You can offer as much help as you like but in reality sometimes you can’t physically help but there are lots of other ways that you can.”

The number of people experiencing alarming hunger, severe levels of food insecurity and malnutrition has increased to 30 million across north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. Famine has been declared in South Sudan and is likely to be already happening in parts of northeast Nigeria, while Yemen and Somalia are on the brink.

This unprecedented crisis is human-made. Every famine is. It represents either a catastrophic human failure or a political choice.

But, the grim fact that famine is always human-made also means that we have the power to prevent and end it.

Right now…

• In South Sudan, 4.9 million people are dangerously hungry, including 100,000 already in famine. Oxfam has helped over 600,000 people with food, water and protection. We are now scaling up to address the thousands of lives at risk from deadly hunger.
• In Yemen, 17 million people are dangerously hungry. Oxfam has so far reached 1 million people.
• In Somalia, nearly 3 million people are dangerously hungry. We have just launched a humanitarian response to initially help at least 20,000 people, with the aim of expanding it to help 200,000 people in the next 12 months.
• In Nigeria, 4.7 million people are dangerously hungry, with around 44,000 people in famine-like conditions. We have helped 245,000 people and our intention is to help up to 500,000 people in 2017.

Read more about Oxfam’s response here.

The two largest catalysts of this wide-spread hunger are ongoing conflict, in South Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria, and climate-change fuelled drought in Somalia.

Conflict has forced many people to leave their homes and communities, thereby losing access to food, fields, jobs and markets. Agriculture and trade have been disrupted, preventing people from producing the food they need, stopping food markets from functioning and disrupting the supply of aid. Those engaged in the conflict should be held accountable if they have directly or indirectly restricted civilian access to food.

Halima*, a mother of five from Nigeria, waits with her children on the side of a street in the town of Banki – an area that has been set up as a camp for people displaced by Boko Haram. She said they stole all her cattle, and she is waiting for the return of her husband from whom she has been separated from. Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam.

Persistent drought in Somalia has led to devastating shortages of food and water, affecting people, animals and crops. This drought and its effects have been worsened by climate change which is fuelled by humans – the rains have been replaced with higher temperatures and drier conditions. Higher temperatures because of climate change mean that water evaporates from the land and from the leaves of plants a lot faster, creating drier conditions and intensifying the impact of the lack of rain.

It is ultimately the responsibility of governments to provide for their citizens, to ensure their right to life and food. When this responsibility cannot be met, the international community must step in. But, often the international response is too late, even when warning signs have been known for months.

The international community should have responded earlier. Human intervention could have prevented things from getting this bad, but we can still prevent things from getting worse.

South Sudan has been an independent nation for five years, and has been engaged in civil war for over three of them.

A group of young, creative activists are calling for ceasefire, and are promoting peace through art with their campaign ‘Ana Taban’.

A mural in Juba with the message ‘fire bullets of peace’.

Jacob Bul, a South Sudanese creative, is a co-founder of the campaign.

“Ana Taban, the name of our campaign, is a phrase in Arabic that people often use in South Sudan. It means ‘I’m tired’. Tired of war, tired of conflict situation. Our idea was to host arts-based community events – including performances and street art – to spread messages of peace and reconciliation. No one refuses to be entertained so, if you put a message in it, people will listen.

We settled on the theme of reconciliation… we started training other artists. Now, there are 47 of us: artists, musicians, spoken word artists and painters.

A mural, described on the Ana Taban Facebook page as the following: What are the people ‘Taban’ of? Poverty, tribalism, violence, hunger, corruption, oppression, injustice, ignorance. Photo: Ana Taban Facebook page.

We recently put on a show in Jebel Suk [‘market’ in Arabic], an area where fighting was really intense in July. A lot of the houses were burned down and the market was looted. Many people lost everything. We set up in an open space and put on a show including comedy, music and drama. Slowly by slowly [a local way of saying bit by bit] more and more people came to watch what we were doing. I would guess we had almost 1,000 spectators.

We performed a song that we wrote called “Malesh,” which means “sorry”. It’s not in our culture to apologize, but, to move forward, we South Sudanese need to accept the fact that we have done a lot of bad things to each other. So we said sorry for the loss of life, for the children sleeping under trees, for the women who’ve been raped and for the babies born in the PoC [Protection of Civilian sites, refugee camps on UN premises where an estimated 200,000 people are living]. The country doesn’t deserve this. When people listened to that song, I saw smiles on their faces. The healing process starts with moments like this.

Riya from Ana Taban sharing a touching, personal story on tribalism at Ana Taban’s open mic night. Photo: Ana Taban Twitter account.

Another of our projects involves a series of murals across Juba. People stop to see what we are doing and it gives us an opportunity to talk. These conversations plant seeds for people to think differently about our country and each other.

Our particular aim is to change the minds of young people. In South Sudan, the youth represent 70 percent of the population. Such a small number of people are messing everything up. If we could unite that 70 percent and get them to take responsibility, we’d have enough will to restore the country.”

The campaign was launched last September, at a time when the number of South Sudanese refugees seeking shelter in neighbouring countries reached over 1 million. The art around the capital city, Juba, is tangible proof that civilians are deeply unhappy with the state of their country and are fighting for change.

As a result of this ongoing conflict and violence, parts of South Sudan have been declared in a state of famine. 4.9 million people are dangerously hungry. Oxfam is providing emergency food, and water and sanitation services to help people avoid diseases like cholera and diarrhea, which can lead to malnutrition and prove fatal. Oxfam, working with local partner organisations, provides emergency food and works with vulnerable people to produce their own food and other income, claim their rights, flee violence, find safety and access aid. Oxfam and others are working to preposition supplies ahead of the rainy season as the weather will make it even more difficult for vulnerable people to access aid.

We desperately need your help. You could be a part of the solution to this massive humanitarian crisis. Donate now to save lives.

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