Concepcion Nunez wants to move house.
For the best part of 40 years, she has lived in a run-down village called Juliana, in the north of the Dominican Republic. All the houses here were built by the Granada Food Company for the workers on its banana plantation; it supplied running water, a school bus and other vital amenities to attract a workforce in a remote place with no other infrastructure or local population.
When the company left in 1962, it took the roofs of the houses with it, devastating the community and leaving them with no income. The original buildings have fallen into disrepair, and the village is taking on the look of a ghost town. It is clear why Concepcion wants out.
Concepcion began to grow bananas herself in 1994, but it was extremely difficult to find a market in such a poor, remote area of the country. ‘No commercial exporter would normally come to Juliana,’ she explains. ‘Whatever I earned, I still had debts by the end of every month.’
Since 2000, Concepcion has been selling her bananas to the UK fair trade market. ‘Five respected farmers from our community were organising a group. I joined because I trusted them.’ The increase in income allows Concepcion to make savings every month, and the social premiums ensured by fair trade have given the community a canteen, a baseball pitch, new housing, and improved water and sanitation facilities. Some other farmers from the community have been able to move out since they started selling their fruit to the fair trade market, and Concepcion would love to join them.
(Interview: Julia Powell, Fairtrade Foundation)