Emerson Aguirre Medina, executive president of Colombian banana association Augura, makes the case for the economic sustainability of bananas
Some words, repeated so often, risk losing their meaning. Sustainability is one of them. It appears on labels, in audits, in corporate commitments and in international declarations. Yet its most fundamental meaning is often overlooked: something is sustainable if it can be maintained over time.
This distinction matters for Colombia’s banana industry. A crop is not sustainable simply because it meets an ever-growing list of environmental and social requirements. It must also be economically viable enough to keep producing, preserve jobs, invest in its workers and support well-being in the regions where it operates. If that foundation weakens, sustainability risks becoming a promise that looks impeccable on paper but is impossible to finance on the farm.
Colombia’s banana sector closed 2025 with more than 133mnn boxes exported, nearly 2.5mn tonnes and sales of US$1.309bn. These are significant figures, but they can lead to an incomplete assessment. Exporting more does not necessarily mean being better off. An industry can increase its sales while losing the ability to sustain its investments if costs rise, prices remain stagnant and revenues lose value when converted into local currency.
That is precisely what is happening today. The appreciation of the peso reduces the income producers receive for a fruit traded in dollars, while a large share of their labour and production costs remains denominated in pesos. Compounding this pressure are rising production costs, heavy rainfall, abrupt changes in weather patterns and productivity increasingly exposed to forces beyond farmers’ control.
Bananas seem condemned to a peculiar economic exception: the sector is expected to meet ever more demanding requirements, take on greater risks and make new investments, while its prices remain virtually unchanged. Few industries could sustain such an equation indefinitely.
Climate change makes this contradiction even clearer. It is not an abstract threat for the future, but a factor already altering production cycles, increasing the vulnerability of plantations and requiring greater investment to produce efficiently. Adaptation requires technology, infrastructure, knowledge and resources. Yet when margins tighten, the capacity to adapt is precisely what is compromised first.
Added to this reality is a certification system built with good intentions, but not always with sufficient coordination. Colombia’s banana sector is not proposing lower environmental, labour or social requirements. Doing so would disregard the progress made and undermine the trust built with markets. What it proposes is something more sensible: harmonising criteria, reducing redundant procedures and ensuring that investment in compliance delivers real change.
Behind this seemingly technical discussion lies a deeply human reality. The banana industry generates more than 200,000 formal jobs and underpins much of the economic life of regions such as Urabá and Magdalena.
Bananas, therefore, are not simply an export fruit. They are part of the social fabric of regions that have found in productive activity a source of stability, formalisation and development. When a farm’s profitability deteriorates, the consequences extend beyond its financial statements. They affect employment, local commerce, families and communities’ ability to build a future.
The value of the labour relations model that has taken shape must also be recognised. In Urabá, more than 90 per cent of the sector’s workers are unionised. The industry has built a tradition of negotiation grounded in social dialogue and continues to make progress towards international living wage standards. These conditions did not emerge spontaneously, nor can they be taken for granted. They depend on productive businesses capable of sustaining them.
This is where the true meaning of shared responsibility becomes clear. It is not a matter of shifting difficulties onto others or asking for concessions. It is about recognising that the sustainability aspirations of international markets come at a cost, and that concentrating that cost at the first link in the supply chain does not make economic sense.
There is no conflict between sustainability and profitability. The latter is a prerequisite for the former. Without economic viability, there will not be sufficient resources to respond to climate change, innovate, protect jobs or raise standards. And without those elements, the promise of a sustainable supply chain will be emptied of meaning.
The discussion about the future of bananas should not be reduced to the price of a box in the supermarket. The truly important question is what needs to happen for that box to continue representing decent work, investment, environmental protection and regional development. Because sustainability does not begin with a certification label.
