The Ecuador Connection

February 18, 2007

Leonardo Bravo, El Guabo Cooperative


Loja and Bravo get a translation from Scott Patterson of Equal Exchange


Free Fair Trade smoothies courtesy La Loma Restaurant

Two small-scale, co-op banana farmers from Ecuador came to the Wedge this week to talk about the Fair Trade bananas that we're selling at the Wedge. Leonardo Bravo and Luis Loja came through Minneapolis on a tour with their U.S. importer, Oké USA out of Boston. Oké, Equal Exchange, J&J Distributing, and Wedge/Co-op Partners Warehouse gave out free Fair Trade bananas and chocolate at Global Market to celebrate the event.

"We bring to the powerful U.S. market," Bravo told the audience of 40 or 50 people through a translator, "a unique opportunity for small farmers to sell their product abroad."

Bravo and Loja's cooperative, El Guabo, represents over 400 small-scale banana farmers, and the co-op owns a third of Oké USA, which ships 25,000 cases of bananas a year to Europe and the U.S. from Ojo province in Ecuador. Agrofair owns a third of Oké USA, Red Tomato owns a third, and Fair Trade coffee co-op Equal Exchange owns a tenth.

In the hard realities of the banana market, the huge volume and big money that come international trade is unheard of for small, independent growers, forcing them to sell locally at very low prices. "The national minimum for bananas in Ecuador," said Isaac Grody-Patinkin of Oké USA, "is $3.25 a box, even though cost of goods is about $3.50. But a lot of banana farmers only receive eighty cents a box." Through Fair Trade contract, however, the El Guabo farmers receive $9.50 per unit, and an earmarked portion of that price, the "social premium," goes to the creation and maintenance of schools and clinics in their communities.

An unusual collaboration between competitors Co-op Partners Warehouse (CPW) and J&J Distributing will make these Fair Trade bananas available in Minnesota. J&J, which has a banana ripening facility, will buy the bananas from Oké USA and CPW will make them available to Twin Cities co-ops like the Wedge.

Loja and Bravo said they were pleased to visit Linden Hills Co-op, Seward Co-op, and the Wedge, where the farmers were able to show Wedge staff certain key factors in quality and ripening.

"That was a great opportunity for us," said Dean Schaldweiler, Wedge Produce Manager, "to learn things about their [quality control] that we never would have known otherwise."

Watch for Oke and other Fair Trade fruits as they become available at your co-op.

Video: An Agrofair/Oké educational spot, featuring El Guabo Co-op (YouTube).