While frolicking around in alt.food.vegan, Jay of Shaw Residential
Internet said:

I have no idea what the conditions are for producing fair trade bananas.
I've never seen them in my grocery store, either, though. Might be worth
looking into. If you find anything, be sure to post it here. I do love
bananas =)

By the way, I have no way of verifying my sources since I've never been to a
banana plantation, but everything I've heard suggests that the way they
'control pests' is by spraying pesticides over the crop workers and crops
alike - pesticides which then get into the local water table. That can't be
safe. Also, much like any crop product, the pay for workers is dismal and
local economies are so completely dependant on crop production that to
remove the product would surely cause much poverty and even worse
conditions. I don't know which is better. Kind of a sucky situation.

I know. It's the problem when a country depends on just one product,
like banana, because it's almost the only thing other countries will
buy from them. As far as the method of pest control goes, I only have
it from a documentary on the issue, but it seems that they do spread
those chemicals by plane with no consideration of who might be out an
working at the plantation.

I'm sure some companies are working to change conditions but I honestly
don't know which ones, nor have I done any research into the subject lately.
Unlike the fair trade movement with coffee and the like, bananas are not
nearly as often talked about amongst people looking to consume ethically.
Thought it might be worth mentioning here.

I don't know if Fair Trade do have bananas on the list, for sure. I do
know that Max Havelaar(sp?) is much similar to Fair Trade and they do
have bananas.
--
Nikitta a.a. #1759 Apatriot(No, not apricot)#18
ICQ# 251532856
Unreferenced footnotes: http://www.nut.house.cx/cgi-bin/nemwiki.pl?ISFN
"Hummm.... 86 percent male. Which probably explains why I only have fun 14 percent
of the time...." Therion Ware (a.a.)