Farmers must improve on banana quality- FAWU President

The President of the Fako Agricultural Workers Union, FAWU, Charles Mbide, has stated that banana farmers in Cameroon, especially the CDC, need to improve on its quality in order to meet the standards and quality demanded by buyers in European and other international markets.

FAWU’s President was speaking to The Post, a few days after returning from Colombia, South America, where he attended the World Banana Forum. Mbide brought back a series of lessons which, he said, could go a long way in helping banana growers in Cameroon improve on their quality.

Of late, one of Cameroon’s major banana growers, the CDC, has had its bananas rejected as a result of poor quality and other shortcomings.

“I found out in Colombia that there is a lot of discipline as far as banana production is concerned, unlike here where there is a lot of laissez-faire and lack of time consciousness,” Mbide said.

”In Colombia,” he added, “the work calendar is scrupulously respected. Chemicals are applied at the right time; mature bananas are harvested when they are due. All these meticulously followed steps reduce the possibilities of having their bananas rejected in the market unlike here in Cameroon.”

On the health assurance aspect, Mbide said unlike in the CDC and Del Monte farms where workers just leave their houses and go straight to the plantations, in Colombia, every worker, before accessing the plantations goes through a disinfection process before he or she is allowed into the farm.

Again, all the workers there are availed with protective clothing, boots and head scarves.

“As workers, we need to be more conscious of our responsibilities and take the banana job as our own and not as any body’s else’s because, when the bananas are rejected, everyone suffers, including the country,” Mbide advised.

“I also discovered in Colombia that there is a scrupulous respect for time and this greatly influences the quality…” Mbide emphasised.

He stated that in Colombia the workers at the banana parking station are so fast in the manner in which they execute their tasks.

“In Cameroon, work that can be done in five hours is what banana workers in Colombia do in two hours,” he said.

Mbide, who since taking over as FAWU President has been doing every thing to improve on the status of the workers in the different corporations which are affiliated to his Union.

He said he will soon be organising a training forum where his Colombia experiences shall be shared to the rest of the workers and management of the CDC to help boost the drive towards producing better quality banana in Cameroon.

Besides gaining experiences in Colombia, Mbide said the forum, which was a grouping of banana workers trade unions around the world, also dwelt on ways of improving on the workers wages that can conveniently take care of their basic needs.

Mbide regretted the fact that, in Cameroon, banana workers earn an insignificantly low wage as compared to their counterparts in Colombia, who he said, earn as much as FCFA 20,000 or more a day.

Colombia is ranked among the world’s top banana producers and makes an average of FCFA 262.5 billion for banana exports annually (according to the 2006 statistics).

“I think Colombia has a lot that Cameroon can learn from as far as banana production is concerned,” Mbide noted.