At the end of October 2025, Prof. Gert Kema (Wageningen University & Research), known for his research into the banana disease Fusarium TR4, retired. AgroFair, which has been supporting his research for more than ten years, remains involved in the development of resistant banana varieties and field trials in Peru.

In 2022, this popular science book, “De Banaan” (The Banana), edited by Prof. Dr. Gert Kema, was published – also with some modest contributions from AgroFair! This book is now available free of charge as a pdf, enjoy reading!

This February, ECOBAN’s plastic recycling factory in Peru celebrates it’s 3-year anniversary! With great dedication and sacrifice, they have been clearing banana plastic and turning it into corner board for 3 years, with increasingly better results.

ECOBAN is striving to make an even stronger corner board. In the PDF you can clearly see a very big improvement from the cornerboards from 2022 to now.

AgroFair has been awarded the Fair Tax Mark, becoming the first multinational head-quartered in the Netherlands to secure accreditation to the gold standard of responsible tax conduct.

Grupo ECOBAN’s banana plastic recycling plant was inaugurated on 10 February. Plastic used in the production is collected, cleaned, granulated and melted into corner boards. More than 2,000 containers can be exported with corner boards made of recycled plastic, each year. Worldwide, an estimated 500 thousand hectares of bananas are grown for export, which equates to 1 billion plastic bunch bags hung around the bunches (about 20,000 tonnes), each year.

It’s a quarter of a century since Fairtrade bananas first appeared on supermarket shelves in Europe. They were imported by AgroFair. CEO Hans-Willem van der Waal reflects on 25 years of partnering with Fairtrade – and why, despite the challenges, he’s optimistic about the future.