Distribution of Value in the Windward Islands to the UK Supply Chains
Farquhar Iain, 2011
Name of publisher/editor
Research funded by FAO for Working Group 02 on “The Distribution of Value along the Chain” of the World Banana Forum (WBF)
Geographic area
Europe
Summary & key words
For some time concerns have been expressed, particularly by Civil Society Organisations, regarding the distribution of value in international supply chains. Rightly or wrongly, an impression has grown that traders and transformers of food or more recently giant retailing chains have been able to keep a disproportionately large share of the retail value of goods, while the people who actually grow food, whether farmers or agricultural labourers, are able to capture only very small proportions of final prices.
This perception potentially gives rise to two areas of concern:
The first is that it appears (to many individuals) ethically wrong for traders or retailers to continue to make good profits while the workers and farmers on whom whole supply chains ultimately depend seem to increasingly have to struggle to survive. A sense of ethical outrage amongst consumers and citizens has led in the last five or ten years to a number of political campaigns aimed in particular at curbing the buyer power of supermarkets in countries as diverse as the UK, Australia, the USA, India and South Africa.
The second is the very practical concern that if the financial rewards available through farming and agricultural work are reduced too far, no-one will be prepared to do the hard work necessary to grow the food on which we all depend.