UK supermarket price wars are wrecking lives in the developing world, according to a campaign launched yesterday by Consumers International (CI).
Recent cuts in the price of pineapples on the British high street have inflicted unacceptable damage on those living and working on plantations in Costa Rica, the consumer group says.
An investigation by Guardian Films, with funding from CI, has found a catalog of environmental and social damage caused by intensive tropical fruit production in Costa Rica, from which most of the pineapples sold in the UK come.
The findings include evidence that:
‧ The use of agrochemicals has led to contamination of drinking water supplies in communities around the plantations. One group of villages, bordering plantations that either supply or are owned by Del Monte, has been forced to collect water from tankers for more than three years.
‧ Repeated chemical accidents have inflicted serious damage on the local environment. In June, a fire at a chemical dump used by the multinational trader Dole caused a toxic cocktail to spill into the nearby river. Fish and other -wildlife including crocodiles were killed along kilometers of waterways. The pesticide involved is sprayed by Dole on its bananas. Dole said it was co-operating with authorities investigating the accident.
‧ Workers reported suffering serious health problems from exposure to the chemicals used on pineapple plantations, including in some cases accidental chemical poisoning on Del Monte and Grupo Acon farms. Grupo Acon supplies the UK supermarket giants Tesco and Asda, Dole and Fyffes.
‧ Price cuts in European supermarkets have led to wages being drastically cut by Grupo Acon, workers said.
‧ Efforts to join independent trade unions are said to have been met with repression and mass firings on Del Monte and Grupo Acon plantations.
CI, which acts as an umbrella group for independent consumer organizations across Europe, says its own research has shown that conditions in Costa Rica’s tropical fruit industry are unacceptable. It accuses supermarkets of complicity despite their public commitments to source food responsibly.
“Their positive intentions are being undermined by retail price cuts and aggressive procurement practices that lead to cuts in wages and insufficient resources to improve working practices,” CI program co-ordinator Catherine Nicholson said. “Consumers want low prices, but not at the cost of fair living conditions for producers.”
Del Monte, which exports 50 percent of Costa Rica’s pineapples, said it had strict controls on chemicals to minimize accidents. It said that the government was monitoring the drinking water situation. It also said that all its workers were free to join unions. Grupo Acon did not respond to the allegations in the Guardian film, but later said it had strict protocols to deal with accidents. Dole declined to comment on conditions at its supplier. Fyffes, supplier to Asda of some Grupo Acon fruit, said it had checked in audits and was satisfied that all its suppliers had an open attitude to unions and did not discriminate against union members.
Asda said it had reiterated to suppliers the high ethical standards it expected of them.
Tesco said it was already actively engaged in improving standards: “After two years working with suppliers in Costa Rica, we have brokered agreement to invite independent labor experts to review labor practices and identify ways to strengthen them. That project is underway and is examining issues including pay, labor relations, seasonal labor and health and safety.”
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the