World Banana Forum Working Group 03 on Labour Rights - Gender research
FAO Gender Report Caribbean
Case study: Windwards Islands small farmers
Written by Kozel Peters, Windward Islands Farmers' Association
Introduction[1]
TheWindwards are composed of the islands of St Lucia, Dominca and St Vincent and the Grenadines. There are approximately 4000 banana producers in the Windward Islands today - the majority in St Lucia - with a total of 3,702 hectares of land under cultivation; the average farm is a little under a hectare. Approximately 45% of these small producers are women[2].
The majority of farms - approximately 3,500 - are Fairtrade certified and some 80% of all bananas produced in the Windwards are sold in the UK. The farmers sell their fruit for export via Winfresh, an export company owned by the islands’ governments (in the form of shares). Almost all the farmers are members of the umbrella organization WINFA (the Windward Islands Farmers Association), a non governmental organization that represents, protects, and promotes the interests of small farmers.
More than 20,000 of 25,000 Windwards banana farmers have gone out of business since the early 1990's. Low retail prices for bananas coupled with increasing competition from 'cheap' Latin American bananas (due to ever lowering import tariff levels for non-ACP bananas entering the EU) have spelt economic disaster for producers. Producers have also been hit by regular natural disasters including hurricanes and droughts which have temporarily wiped out production and halted exports. These issues have had a significant negative social and economic impact on families, communities and the overall economies of the islands, including an increase in unemployment (over 30% in most islands) and related social problems. There exist significant pockets of poverty in rural communities across all islands and this is most actutely felt by single female-headed households and their families whose livelihoods depend totally on income from bananas.
Methodology
The key input for this report came from a workshop conducted in in December 2014 with 20 women banana producers from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and Dominica. The workshop was carried out by WINFA and the report was written up by WINFA Coordinator Kozel Peters. Desk research and existing ressources were then used to compliment this field research.
1. Womens representation
TABLE 1. The number of women (vs male) small producers per company/association/farm[3]
Country / Total / Male / Female / Percentage FemaleST. Vincent / 152 / 84 / 68 / 44.7%
St. Lucia / 450 / 248 / 202 / 44.8%
Dominica / 150 / 83 / 67 / 44.7 %
Total / 752 / 415 / 337 / 44.8%
We can see that across the Windwards Islands there is currently no significant disparity in terms of males versus female involvement in the sector. The women producers felt that while the situation of male dominance existed in previous years, the decline in the industry has meant that a lot of men have migrated from the sector to other productive sectors of the economy such as construction, transportation and tourism.
In comparison, women have tended to stay in the industry because they are less 'mobile' due to family responisibilites and also due to limited employment opportunities in other sectors compared to men – partly due to lack of education and literacy - so for most women banana production continues to be their only local source of income. Women also felt that they are more resilient than male producers to economic pressures.
The women felt that both male and female producers are treated equally by other industry stakeholders - such as their association, hired labourers, buyers and certification bodies - so there are no perceived negative impacts of being a women (rather than male) producer.
The roles of women producers
Within the Windward Islands women are involved in all aspects of banana production. This includes the more labour intensive roles in the field as well as less intensive roles such as packing, washing and deflowering.
The majority of these women producers (70% of the workshop participants) run the farms on their own and recieve no help from their partner or any other family members. They (88% of workshop participants) do however employ external help on their farms, on average two additional labourers and these are mainly male (only 7% of workshop participants employed women labourers). These labourers, both the men and the women, undertake all tasks associated with production and harvesting.
Historically there were more employment opportunities available to casual women banana workers on the farms but the downturn in the industry has resulted in a loss of female employment.
2. Key issues faced by women workers and small producers in the workplace and at home
The key problems highlighted by women in the producers workshop were mainly in the workplace with no indication of any problems at home. Most women felt that even though economic issues related to banana production are of course reflected as financial problems at home they do not consider this to result in wider 'domestic problems'. The key issues identified by women producers the workshop thus include:
- 'Praedial Larceny' – the theft of agricultural produce from farms
- Access to financing/credit
- Pest and disease management, and lack of government support to deal with this issue
- The lack of a consistent labour supply
WINFA have however highlighted additional issues reported to them by women producers:
- Childcare issues for single parents, leading to children being pulled out of secondary and tertiary education
- Lower wages for women casual labourers compared to men
- Lack of social security
- Decreasing income from bananas and subsequent lack of job security and poor living conditions, in particular poor housing.
- Low literacy, education and training limiting diversification opportunities
The above issues are consistent through out the three Windward Island banana industries, and were not considered to be island-specific.
3. Innovations towards decent work for women workers and small producers
Within the last year there have been some attempts through governmental programmes to address the financial constraints in the sector as well as the pest and disease issue. Specifically in St. Vincent and the Grenadines the govenment has recently established a credit facility through the Farmers Support Company that lends at a very low interest rate to male and female farmers.
Similarly in St. Lucia a loan was granted to the national WINFA organization by a marketing agency to address the credit problem. In the case of Dominica however, access to credit is one of the biggest challenges for women relating to decent work and sustainable livelihoods but there has been no initiative developed so far to address this issue.
The women producers also felt that there had been recent improvements through initiatives implemented by WINFA and through Fairtrade certification. These include improvements in health and safety standards, in particular protection from chemicals (which has of course also impacted on male producers) but also in terms of improvements in maternity rights for women producers and workers.
WINFA are working to address the concerns and issues for women workers at all levels and mainstream gender-related issues in all WINFA programs.Particular attention is shown to the rights and needs of female farmers, many of whom are single-parents. Programmes of exchanges for women are carried out, and women are encouraged to participate actively in assemblies and exchanges as well as various international and regional fora to help establish gender-sensitive policies and improve women producer knowledge on the wider industry realities[4].
4. Recommendations
The main recommendations from women producers include:
- The establishment of credit facilities towards the development of the industry and to ensure sustained livelihood opportunites for women
- The strengthening of crop insurance facilities for producers
- Improvements in farm roads and infrastructure.
- Support with casual labour costs and the availability of labour
- Training for women small producers to enhance their skills in the use of new technologies for production, processing and marketing of bananas
[1]Distribution of Value in the Windward Islands to the UK Supply Chains by Dr. Iain Farquhar, Banana Link, 2010
[2]See Table 1 below
[3]WINFA women's workshop, Kingstown, Saint Vincent &v The Grenadines, December 2014.
[4]Women in the Windward Islands by Josephine Dublin Prince, WINFA 2010