23 June.

Oh no! There I was thinking that I was going to write a best-seller! Maybe I'll call it 'Fifty Shades of Yellow'!

Seriously, there are an awful lot of myths about bananas and plantains. There have been special import taxes into the EU (ie no tax) for bananas from certain countries, because the EU recognised that some countries depend very heavily on growing bananas and didn't want to bankrupt them. There has been some controversy, because some countries weren't excluded from the import duty-free deal.

Madeira is in the EU, so has had to face competition from exporters from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, who can grow on a massive scale. Presumably if the UK were to leave the EU, the price of bananas from all countries would rise (and Britons would have to pay more), unless the UK negotiated a special deal. It would have to negotiate deals with EU and non-EU growers.

Bananas are an example of a crop which hasn't been protected by the EU setting import tariffs. If the UK does leave the EU, we would be faced with having to set duties for every crop we import. I guess the process would create jobs for redundant EU officials - and more.

https://findery.com/skimbaco/notes/smaller-is-better-yes-in-madeira
and they are delicious

sorry findery.com/skimbaco/notes/smaller-is-better-yes-in-madeira

I will get used to this one day

Jalima, Bananas from Madeira would have been affected with or without the EU. It's not true that Lady Finger bananas can't be sold in the EU because they're the wrong size/shape, but Europeans (especially Germans) prefer larger, much cheaper bananas from other countries. It might actually help Madeiran banana growers if the EU were to set protectionist tariffs.

I'm sure they are delicious, but they're expensive. The price of standard supermarket bananas is ridiculously low and the average consumer will buy the cheapest. Lady Finger bananas are a niche market.

I can never get over how cheap bananas are here! I pay far more when we go to Australia despite the fact that they come from just along the road (well, relatively speaking), although DD and SIL have a banana plant which produces those small sweet bananas - delicious!

The reason they're so cheap is because the importers don't have to pay duties and producers can grow on an absolutely MASSIVE scale. They have to be harvested by hand and wages in the third world are a pittance. That's why Madeira just can't compete. Madeira doesn't have the land and the cost of labour is higher than in many other countries. Supermarkets also use bananas as a loss leader (see the link about Walmart above). In my local market bananas are more expensive than the supermarkets, while most other fruit and veg are cheaper.

And Australia have to pay casual workers (pickers/packers) A$23 per hour plus holiday pay plus Sunsuper into their pension fund, hence their bananas are expensive even at home.

When I say 'Australia' I mean Australian farmers.

I don't think I've ever seen an Australian banana in the UK. At those prices plus the cost of air transport, I can understand why.

PS. Did you know that most modern banana cultivars are descended from a single plant grown Chatsworth House in Derbyshire?

Sorry! I really have been interested in bananas for a long time. They're a much more important crop than most people realise.

They have their own informative website www.bananalink.org.uk/the-problem-with-bananas

No, they don't export to here daphnedill
I'm not sure if they export to the Far East or NZ or whether all their produce goes to home markets.
A cyclone had wiped out a lot of the banana plantations when I was there a few years ago hence they were very expensive indeed.

Don't be sorry! Except you have started me off on this song (from a children's cartoon)
Bananas in Pyjamas are Coming out to Play

The other interesting thing about bananas daphedil is that they are experimenting making GF flour from bananas (because they are starchy)

I just looked at your link and I would rather pay more for my bananas and give people a living wage and better controls on the chemicals they use.

We take cheap food for granted.

And they are a herbaceous plant not, a tree

pc playing up, grammar!

daphnedill As you are interested in bananas did you know about banana ripening warehouses? There is one in the old part of Newcastle. It belonged to the Coop-no longer used of course!

I keep reading comments that refute there was ever a 'bendy banana' law, a myth, right wing press propaganda etc. but have they got their facts straight?

A 1994 EU Regulation did indeed specify that bananas. 'must be free from abnormal curviture' EU rules also governed the shape of many other fruit and vegetables, - cucumbers , for example, needed to be perfectly straight. Many of these specifications were abolished in 2008, though the banana guidelines remain on the books'.

Look up Commission Regulation EC 2257/94. 16th Sept 1994. (informally known as the bendy banana law).

'...the media largely supports Brexit......'

Really? It seems mostly the other way round to me.

I hope we soon get some proper information to help the 'don't knows' decide. An A4 sheet divided down the middle with 'Reasons for' on one side and 'Reasons against' on the other is needed for those too short on time to do their own research. The trouble is that one person's 'reason for' would be another person's 'reason against'!

Sorry, I didn't notice the conversation had moved on to bananas.

Everyone will have gone bananas by 23rd June NotTooOld

Jalima

It hasn't, NotTooOld, and I'm sorry for leading the thread up the banana path. However, it's a classic case where the EU has been misinterpreted and has been wrongly blamed for local economic problems.

Ironically, the EU could have protected Madeiran banana growers by imposing import tariffs on bananas from other markets, but it hasn't, because it didn't want to bankrupt third world countries and because it wanted to protect the price of bananas for its citizens.

My own interest in bananas was inspired by an article I read years ago about bananas distorting trade deficits. I was very cynical at first, but the more I looked into it, the more I realised that bananas are an important crop.

Despite what Madeiran banana growers think, this is a case which shows how it would be if there were no EU and everybody were left to trade in global free markets.

For anybody interest in history, something similar happened in the mid nineteenth century. Remember the Corn Laws from your history lessons at school? British wheat growers were protected by high import tariffs (like the EU), but this meant that prices for consumers were kept high. America could produce wheat much more cheaply than Britain could, but the price was kept high to discourage import. This meant that British farmers were protected but people were paying high prices for their bread. Tories (farmers) were bitterly opposed by free trade Liberals (Whigs), who wanted to make the price of basic foodstuffs, such as bread, cheaper.

POGS, Where are the comments about bendy bananas? I've missed them.

daphnedil

Should there have been a post for me to mention European Regs ? As you have asked however , what did you mean by wrong size/' shape ' in your post 13.29. Square bananas.

The term apocrophyl tales being believed has been used and I have read other posts on other threads that elude to myths and rumour. I thought it was in order to post something factual that's all.

Size and shape were dictated in European Regulation and it is commonly known as 'the bendy banana law'.

POGS, The plight of Madeiran banana growers is nothing to do with bendy bananas. I'm fed up with trying to explain. There's only so much bashing my head against a brick wall I can take!

Then why ask me the ruddy question ?