Sir, – The big supermarkets often force local producers here to bear the costs when the supermarkets have promotional prices or try to lure shoppers with loss-leaders such as milk at bargain prices. How much worse is it for small farmers overseas! In price wars between the supermarkets, the price of bananas has halved in the past 10 years but the cost of producing them has doubled. We eat cheap bananas but the banana farmers and workers in tropical countries cannot afford to feed their families or pay for basics such as education or healthcare. We should all insist on only buying fair trade bananas, as well as fair trade tea and coffee, to ensure that we do not have cheap food at the expense of those working to produce it. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET MARSHALL,
Belfast.