The future of banana trading. :: Economics

The future of banana trading. Q1. Introduction. Latin America is situated in the southern part of America, on the equator, between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Lain America is in the prime location for growing bananas because of the countries tropical climate. Bananas grow where there is sun and rain all year round, so that they can fully develop. Looking at my climate graph I can see that it does rain all year and the temperature doesn't drop below 6 degrees. It has tropical heat and a rainy season between the months of January and April. In Latin America there are seven major exporters of bananas. They are Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua. Look at Figures 1, 2 and 3 for more information. Q2. Describing TNCs. A Transnational country is a company which operates in many different countries, regardless of their situation or financial difficulties. TNC's normally have their headquarters based in a developed country, whilst working their 'branched' factories in developing countries. The TNC's directly employ millions of people, but the work they do effects millions more. Many people feel that the TNC's exploit poor countries, whilst others say that the world economy depends on them. There are four major TNCs involved in the banana trade, they are Chiquita, Dole Food Co, Del Monte, and Fyffes. Â · Chiquita is based in Ohio, US it farms mainly in Honduras and Guatemala. Â · Dole Food Co is based in California, USA and farms in Costa Rica, Honduras, Ecuador and Colombia. Â · Del Monte is based in Florida and farms in Costa Rica and Guatemala. Â · Fyffes is based in Dublin, Ireland and farms in Belize, Guatemala. All of these TNCs import to the United States, Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Look at figures 4, 5 and 6 for more information. Q5. The Alternatives for the future. There are several companies who are trying to make things better for the future of banana trading they are COLSIBA, EUROBAN, IUF, US/LEAP, Fair Trade and many Internet sites and trade unions. All of these organisations are trying to meet one goal, and that is to help the banana workers improve their lives. They all do this by targeting different areas that are in need of improvement, COLSIBA for example try to improve working conditions by using trade unions, whilst Fair Trade concentrates on the financial difficulties and some of the environmental concerns. COLSIBA is the Co-ordination of Latin American Banana Workers' Unions, it represents 40 trade unions in 8 countries. COLSIBA was set up in 1993 so that it can respond better to the many problems that banana plantation workers face, all across the world's main exporting region.