CAMPAIGNERS from Dinas Powys are calling on local Tesco stores to source more Fairtrade bananas in a bid to ensure banana farmers and workers in the developing world don't suffer as a result of supermarket price wars

The Dinas Powys Fairtrade Group, along with Fairtrade Cardiff, are asking the supermarkets to make the switch during November, when retailers typically negotiate supplier contracts for the year ahead.

Bananas are the UK’s favourite fruit – the UK public spends more than £700m eating five billion of them a year – yet instead of making a decent living, many banana farmers that supply the UK are struggling to get by. In Ecuador, one of the UK’s biggest suppliers, only one in four families working in the banana industry earns enough to take them above the poverty line.

The UK retail price of loose bananas has almost halved over the past 10 years, while the cost of producing them has doubled.

Banana farmers and workers are paying the price for the nation's cheap fruit, with many trapped in an unrelenting cycle of poverty.

But retailers who source their bananas as Fairtrade can assure their customers that despite retail price wars, farmers and workers producing the fruit continue to receive agreed, transparent Fairtrade prices and premiums.

Currently, one in three bananas sold in the UK is Fairtrade.

Asda and Tesco are the focus of the public campaign as the two biggest sellers of bananas in the UK that still stock some non-Fairtrade bananas. In fact, both currently source less than 10 per cent of their bananas on Fairtrade terms.

More than eight in ten shoppers (including 85 per cent of Asda shoppers and 84 per cent of Tesco shoppers) say they would pay more for their bananas if the farmers and workers who produced them benefit as a result. Shoppers say they trust independent third-party certification more than retailers' own claims, with Fairtrade being the label they trust most to ensure that farmers and workers get a fair deal.

Keep in touch with the Dinas Powys Fairtrade Group via their page on Facebook or follow them on Twitter @DPfairtrade.