Outside the Martial’s home at the top of the tiny village of Aux-Lyons above Dennery. Their banana farm is below them. Victor is cooking a salt fish and banana stew. Children are everywhere – under chairs, hanging out of windows and draped over walls.

One Saturday morning in 2001. A day of rest

Mark Potter- the interviewer, Victor Martial (35) owner of 5-acre banana farm for 15 years, Cecilia Martial – his wife. Victor also looks after his mother. His seven children, cousins and friends are there too.

First farmer in St. Lucia to join the Fairtrade scheme in July 2000. He is one of 4,500 banana growers in St. Lucia and said to be one of the hardest working. About 75,000 people on the island are employed in banana farming. Victor has to feed all his family and pay the farm workers, so does not have enough money for a toilet of their own. They share one with a neighbour.

At one time Victor could sell his bananas straight to Britain and Britain paid them well. Then a ruling came in which stopped that happening. Other countries had enormous banana plantations and could afford machines and used lots of chemicals so they could produce bananas much more cheaply. People like Victor could not compete.By joining Fairtrade he will be paid more, about £5 per box of 45lbs. For every box he sells through Fairtrade, Fairtrade will pay back some money in to the community to help everyone.

Rises at 5.30am and starts before 7am. He works until it is dark, six days a week, sometimes seven.

Clear land, pull up old plants, dig holes, plant new tubers: Weed, deflower young fruit, tie back the leaves to stop bruising, cover clusters of bananas with a blue polythene sack to keep insects and birds out: cut, examine and wrap the bananas. Once bananas were just thrown into a lorry!

“I’ve been running a farm for 15 years. Until 1993, no one stopped us – we sold to Britain and that was cool. Then the Americans came in and we were shunted up the line. We do not have any money to farm on a big scale the way they do. We don’t have any machines – everything is done by hand. Many farmers have gone bust. Those who are still around have to work so hard. If the banana industry goes, half of St. Lucia will lose their jobs.”

A minimum of chemicals is used. Every bunch is picked by hand, expertly scrutinised and carefully packed as if it were bone china. The volcanic soil in St. Lucia seems to make them taste better. The bananas are sweeter, smaller and nicer than the bananas from the big factory farmed plantations.