| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 58

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Gordon Myers, Banana Wars: The Price of Free Trade: A Caribbean Perspective (London: Zed Books 2004)

ISSUES SURROUNDING the international banana trade have entered the public's consciousness over the last decade via the long-running United States — European Union [EU] banana trade war. The banana industries of the Caribbean, particularly those in the countries that constitute the Windward Islands, have been undermined as a consequence of this transatlantic confrontation. The combination of strong US opposition to the EU's preferential banana market favouring Caribbean producers and the rulings of the World Trade Organization [WTO] has forced many Caribbean banana farmers to look for alternative employment. However, the opportunities for diversification are limited, and the result has been increasing unemployment, poverty, and social dislocation in these small island states. The present volume by Gordon Myers, a former civil servant in the now defunct British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, and now European representative of the Caribbean Banana Exporters' Association, provides an insider's account of the transatlantic banana war. Myers also attempts to critique the international trading system more generally, and to suggest new arrangements in the EU that will enable the remaining Caribbean banana industry to survive into the future.

The volume is divided into 23 chapters, as well as an appendix that provides a useful chronology of the main events in the banana war between June 1992 and February 2002. The work is bookended by a foreword written by Ralph E. Gonsalves, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and an afterword by Edison James, former prime minister of Dominica. Both men have been heavily involved in defending Caribbean banana interests since the early 1990s, and offer interesting personal commentaries on recent developments. However, the main reason to read this volume is to benefit from Myers's considerable insight into the politics of the banana trade. There is an excellent explanation of the legal issues underpinning the US-EU banana dispute of the 1990s. Indeed, this is the best and most clearly written account seen by the reviewer. Other highlights include a lucid description of the original EU banana market regime established in 1993 that would soon precipitate US intervention and an even-handed assessment of the less well-documented negotiations involving the major parties to the dispute after the second WTO panel in April 1999. The volume also identifies a number of earlier challenges against preferred access for Caribbean bananas entering the European market. A rarely mentioned case from 1983 is cited in Chapter Six, when a small fruit-importing company sued the British government over the procedures for the issuing of banana licenses. Such insights provide a valuable context for understanding the battles that would later be fought over the importation of Caribbean bananas into the single EU market.

Beyond the trade disputes, Myers considers the important changes in market conditions which have undermined the viability of Caribbean bananas in Europe, and particularly in their traditional United Kingdom market. The increasing power of large supermarkets to dictate production patterns and to shape consumer tastes has placed an additional burden on struggling Caribbean banana farmers. Since supermarkets account for over 80 per cent of UK banana sales, and deem bananas to be a loss leader in attracting more customers to their stores, all banana producers but particularly the less-efficient Caribbean ones have been hit with lower prices and more onerous and expensive packaging and presentation standards. As Myers so clearly illustrates, the cutthroat competition between supermarkets, added to a world surplus of bananas, has led to an increasingly harsh market environment for Caribbean banana producers. A possible solution to such market conditions, as well as the harmful rulings of the WTO, is the development of niche fair trade and organic bananas, and Myers assesses the market potential of these in some detail. However, his conclusions are not encouraging. Myers argues that niche products can only make up a small percentage of overall sales, and these will depend on sufficient amounts of traditionally produced bananas to render a weekly shipping service economically viable.

Although Myers provides important insights into various aspects of the Caribbean banana trade and the international banana war, the volume does not meet all of the author's intended objectives. In particular, the book does not present an adequate analysis of what policies the EU and Caribbean governments and exporting companies must follow in order to maintain a viable banana export industry in the Caribbean. In addition, the final chapter on reforming the WTO is too much of an afterthought to offer a substantial contribution to the ongoing debate. Other problems with the volume include the lack of a central hypothesis which means that the book overall lacks a unifying rationale, while the absence of proper referencing and a detailed bibliography limits the volume's wider academic value.

However, perhaps the most significant weakness of the volume is that the author was not prepared to delay completion of the manuscript until the final phase of the banana conflict was concluded. Controversy over the banana issue was reignited in October 2004 when the European Commission opened negotiations to move to a tariff-only regime by 2006, which was part of a deal struck in 2001 between the US and the EU to end hostilities. The Commission suggested a tariff level of 230 per tonne for "dollar" banana imports (Caribbean bananas would retain their access under a tariff quota at zero duty). In March 2005, Latin American governments, believing that a figure closer to 75 per tonne would be more appropriate, asked the WTO to consider the validity of the EU's suggested tariff. The WTO ruled against the EU tariff level in July, arguing that it would "not maintain total market access" for Latin American suppliers. In response the EU lowered its proposed import duty to 187 per tonne. However, in late October the WTO again rejected the EU's proposals on the same grounds as its previous ruling. On 29 November 2005 the EU reduced further its proposed import duty on Latin American bananas to 176 per tonne, which was then cleared by the WTO as acceptable. In light of these recent developments, it would have been worthwhile for Myers to hold off publication until the tariff level had been agreed. By doing this the author could have gone further than existing books that have considered the transatlantic banana dispute (see for example, T. Josling and T. Taylor [2003], The Anatomy of a Trade Dispute; and P. Clegg [2002], The Caribbean Banana Trade: From Colonialism to Globalization) and provided a more complete and original account of the subject matter. As it stands, the volume, although published in 2004, contains little information after 2002 and as a consequence is not substantially different from other books already available. However, the volume can still be recommended as an account of the experiences of a dedicated official who has acted in the best interests of the Caribbean banana trade for over 30 years.


Peter Clegg University of the West of England, Bristol

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