Angel Iniguez - a stable price and a healthy environment

Angel is married and has a young daughter Daniella, who is 2 and a half years old. He owns nearly 6 hectares of land in Tenguel, Ecuador, where he grows Fairtrade bananas for the El Guabo Association. He tells about his life and the impact of Fairtrade as a banana producer.

“For us, being in El Guabo and selling Fairtrade bananas has meant that our family are well looked after and that we can stay together. The finca (farm) provides an income for all of us; my parents, my brother, sisters and their families as well as my own. We always take a lot of care over the finca. I like to make it look beautiful so that it is a lovely place to be. It gives me great pleasure to see all the flowers amongst the bananas each day and I bring my daughter here to show her.”

“The important thing is to keep helping us by buying our Fairtrade bananas… If you don’t buy our fruit, we can’t look forward to better times and keep taking care of the environment!”

“All of my family work here together. My father and I tend to the banana plants every day. My mother, sisters, brother and brother-in-law work in the washing and packing station on the finca on harvesting and shipment days.”

Angel has been a member of El Guabo for 4 years now. “It was always an aim of ours to join, but we rented this land until 2004 and so it wasn’t possible. Then, thanks to God, we were able to buy it. I wanted us to be in El Guabo because I knew that as small producers we would be better off. There is a fair price all year round, and the volumes are more stable. To be able to buy the land we had to sell a small truck that my father had bought. He was reluctant to sell it because we could make money transporting goods in it. He told me that I needed to wake up and make sure that I knew what I was doing. In the end I managed to convince him that it was a good thing to sell the truck to have the money to buy the land and to join El Guabo.”

For Angel and his family, being part of El Guabo and selling Fairtrade organic bananas has meant that their family are well looked after and can stay together. The finca provides an income for them all. “Our income from bananas has improved and my father has been able to buy another small truck to replace the one he sold. He made the right decision.”

Before joining El Guabo, life was hard. They had no security or stability in terms of price or volume because they sold their bananas to intermediary buyers for whatever price were offered. “Sometimes we would get good prices, say $6 or $7 a box, but then prices would fall as low as $0.80 to $1 a box. We were too small to sell to the big multinational companies, they only wanted to buy much bigger volumes directly from producers. We were never able to plan any projects to make improvements to the finca or to our home. We never bought anything for our house before we joined El Guabo. Now we have been able to buy a fridge and to replace some of our very old furniture.”

Since joining El Guabo, Angel and his family have been able to make improvements to their farm. El Guabo provided them with low interest credit so that they could invest in their finca. They have been able to build a cable wire system to transport the harvested bananas from the banana plants to the washing and packing station.

“We used to have to carry them (bananas on our shoulders for up to 350 metres. Each one weighs from 20 to 30 kilograms so it was exhausting work. Now, the furthest we ever have to carry them is 50 metres to hook them onto the cable system. We have built a proper washing and packing station. We have a concrete floor now whereas it used to just be the earth. When it rained and we were standing washing bananas in the tanks, we used to sink into the mud. We never used to have access to a water supply to irrigate the banana plants, we had to wait for the dirty runoff water to come into our canals from neighbouring land. It wasn’t very clean or sufficient.”

Angel has a message for banana consumers in New Zealand: “The important thing is to keep helping us by buying our Fairtrade bananas. We are small producers and by buying our bananas, you are helping us and the workers on our farms to progress. If you don’t buy our fruit, we can’t look forward to better times and keep taking care of the environment!”