Gone Bananas

In case you don't know the history of bananas and its global impact let me some it up for you- exploitation. Banana trees were originally planted alongside the railroad that was being built in the late 1800s. Known as the "Jungle Train," this railway was contracted by a British company as an effort to build a train from the Central Valley to the Caribbean Coast. The manager of the project, Keith put in banana trees alongside the train track to feed the workers. However, Keith soon found that he made more money from the bananas than the railway, and changed his mission to selling bananas to the US, and changed the name of the company to United Fruit Company (UFC).

Then came all the benefits of big business. The small farmers could no longer compete, and sold their farms to UFC (also referred to as El Pulpo- "The Octopus"- because it had its tentacles invading other countries). The fun continued. The US demand for bananas increased and large quantities of jungle were chopped down to make way for an increasing railway system. Hardly any money came back to the workers, yet UFC expanded its territory to other poor countries (known as banana republics). The brutality of UFC is portrayed in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, when the employers open fire on striking employees and murder thousands- only to erase their names from history the next day. The poor working conditions continue until 1936 when the workers lead a strike, which later ends exploitation....or does it? What if the exploitation of the workers slowed, but the exploitation of land remained. 

With an increased focus on globalization and competition, fast production is beating out environmentally-friendly practices. Especially because Costa Rica has to compete with other Latin American countries such as Brazil, practices such as organic farming are scarce. With a recent push for greater supply, the agriculture sector is starting to use pesticides rather than organic methods. It is estimated that only 5% of the farms are sustainable. When I talked to our tour guide Jimmy, he said the same thing. Jimmy informed us that American Banana Companies such as Dole, Delmonte use helicopters to spray the bananas every 5-8 days in order to increase quantities. There is only one place that Jimmy knows of that you can get true, organic Costa Rican Bananas: Earth University. You can buy these bananas in the states at higher scale grocery stores such as Whole Foods. But Jimmy brings us back to reality. People buy bananas like they buy any other food; they choose it for the lowest cost. Unfortunately, not enough people know about the history of the food they buy. They don't see the American Big Business Fruit Companies who spray pesticides from a plane; they don't see the rain forests chopped down to accommodate the American demand; they don't see the young boys, browned from the pouring sunlight, who have to pull hundreds of pounds of fruit. Instead they see bananas. Yellow. Low Calories. Banana Bread?

In case you were curious, yes, a pineapple does grow out of the ground