UK accused of plan to further cut cost of bananas at expense of poorest African producers

UK refusing to commit to EU pledge to stop cutting tariffs on big producers despite bananas being as cheap today as three decades ago

Are we sending gunboats to take the bananas cheaply or something? Not that we have any gunboats and we’d not do so if we did. But what’s the complaint here?

The government has now been accused of pursuing an irresponsible post-Brexit policy that could reduce the price of bananas further in the shops – but at the cost of the livelihoods of thousands of workers on small plantations in some of Africa’s poorest countries.

The British market is already dominated by the so-called “dollar banana” producers of Latin America who are able to sell cheaply having benefited from rolled-over EU-negotiated free trade deals that have cut the import taxes, or tariffs, on the fruit.

The EU, however, promised in 2019 not to cut tariffs imposed on the big producers any further in recognition of the impact on the smaller African competitors. The UK’s exit has freed it from that pledge to the world’s poorest.

According to Afruibana, the Pan-African association of banana producers and exporters, all the indications are that the result will be betrayal, with the UK government ditching the EU promise to protect them.

So, we have tariffs against banana imports. Presumably preferential ones too. Such tariffs make bananas more expensive in Britain - that’s what tariffs do. That’s what tariffs are, they’re a tax upon consumers. Logic would suggest that a British government, with the interests of Britons at heart, would not have a tax upon bananas. So, cutting those tariffs seems like an excellent idea. Britons will be better off.

The complaint then is that those African producers will be worse off. To which one response is and? Whose government is this after all?

Another, and a more subtle one, is that if people in Africa are growing high cost bananas then they’re trapped in a low value occupation. What is actually desired is that they move into a high value occupation. Maybe growing date palms, or oil palm, or maize. Or possibly flooding into the factories which is what made this country rich. Or, well, something, anything, else than adding very little value by growing high cost and thus low value added bananas.

But the insistence here is that by deliberately fiddling the terms of trade we should continue to trap those Africans in their poverty. Keep them on those high cost banana plantations where they earn little - because the value add is low.

So, actually, the policy being demanded here is that we trap Africans in poverty by making bananas more expensive for Britons. We tend to think that fails on both counts.

It’s also possible to be very much more basic about this. Don’t have a trade policy, don’t have tariffs. Simply leave free trade be in its totality. If we then also want to help poor Black Africans then let us then go and help poor Black Africans.

And finally, who really benefits from the preferential tariffs? Well, it’s the capitalists in Africa who own the banana plantations, isn’t it? And why do we want to benefit them at the cost of cheap fruit (yes, we know, it’s an herb) for Britons?