How big is the banana industry in Ghana, how many workers are there on the plantations?
There are two main banana plantations in Ghana. One is owned by a Dole subsidiary called Golden Exotics Ltd or Compagnie Fruitiere Ltd. This has 1,500 permanent workers plus around 500 temporary workers. So 2,000 in total and about 300 of the workers are women, who mainly work in the pack houses. The other plantation is a Fairtrade certified plantation owned by Volta River Estates Ltd, which has shareholders from Agrofair – a Fairtrade organisation from the Netherlands- and other shareholders within Ghana. This is a smaller plantation with 580 workers and 170 are women. Nearly all of these workers are permanent as this is part of the Fairtrade standards. This plantations is 90% organic but the Golden Exotic plantation in conventional. Q. Are there many young workers on the plantations? In Ghana you have to be over 18 years old to work and, due to pressure from the trade unions as well, most companies respect this law. The ages of workers of the plantations is mixed, with workers from 1
