The economics of bananas are simple and brutal: UK retail prices have been effectively frozen for nearly 40 years while every input cost — fertiliser, fuel, labour, and now climate adaptation — has climbed relentlessly. The gap between what it costs to grow a banana and what supermarkets pay for one is not a market failure. It is a market design. Producers in Latin America and the Caribbean are now formally asking international buyers to acknowledge this. The immediate trigger is this year's super El Niño. Colombian Caribbean banana exports fell 32% to $122m between July and September. In September alone, shipments dropped 42% year on year, with earnings nearly halving from $70m to $40m. Fairtrade data from the previous El Niño cycle shows productivity declines of 13% in the Dominican Republic, 22% in Ecuador, and 6% in Peru. The 1983 El Niño — one of the strongest recorded — hit 15% of Ecuador's planted banana area and slashed exports by 36%. This cycle is expected to be worse. The structural picture is starker than the weather. Research by the Ethical Trading Initiative found that 2026 prices paid to suppliers did not cover basic production costs for 66.7% of them. Two-thirds of producers are operating below cost. Meanwhile, Inter-American Development Bank research projects that suitable banana cultivation land could shrink by an average of 61% across Latin America and the Caribbean by 2050. The crop is simultaneously becoming harder to grow and less viable to grow it where it currently grows. The extraction mechanism runs through UK supermarket purchasing practices. Contracts push risk down the supply chain. Low or late payments prevent producers from investing in climate resilience. Workers like Ever Antonio Flores Muños at Colombia's Agrosiete describe intensifying heat, flooding, and wind damage over the past decade, with wages declining as production drops. The entire adaptation burden falls on those with the least capital to bear it. Some voluntary action exists. Sainsbury's, Co-op, and Waitrose source only Fairtrade bananas, which guarantee a minimum price. But Fairtrade is now calling for UK legislation to tackle unfair trading practices — an acknowledgement that voluntary commitments from a handful of retailers are insufficient when the structural incentives push prices down across the whole market. Fyffes, one of the largest suppliers, has publicly stated that supermarket banana prices need to reflect the real cost of production. The Fairtrade Foundation and the Association of Banana Growers of Magdalena and La Guajira are both making the same argument from different positions: the current price structure is incompatible with the survival of the industry. Climate adaptation, decent wages, environmental management, and human-rights due diligence all cost money. The price of a banana in a UK supermarket reflects none of these costs. This is a textbook case of externalised costs meeting accelerating climate risk. For decades, cheap bananas have been subsidised by underpaid labour and underinvested land in the tropics. Climate change is now calling that subsidy due — and the people who have been paying it all along are the ones asking for relief.
