Bananas in Honduras

            John Soluri provides a careful account of a variety of topics related to banana cultivation in Honduras from the 1870s to the end of the twentieth century.  The two primary markets for bananas were the United States and Europe, and Soluri focuses on the U.S. market.  Distributers purchased bananas on bunch from United Fruit, and then distributed them as hands to retail outlets.  Distributors were convinced that only attractive large bananas with unbruised peels would find favor with consumers.  This led to a preference in the industry for Gros Michel bananas.  When two different diseases attacked the bananas in Honduras United Fruit was reluctant to switch to a variety resistant to disease.  A pathogen that infected the soil could be counteracted by abandoning infected fields and planting elsewhere.  A second disease, Sigatoka, was counteracted by spraying plants with copper-sulfate and lime, called Bordeaux spray.  Both solutions cost United Fruit time and money.  These solutions were too expensive for independent growers to attempt.  Significantly, Bordeaux spray exposed farm workers to toxic chemicals that impaired their health.  Eventually Standard Brands, a United Fruit competitor, switched to the disease resistant banana, Cavendish, after implementing a process where bananas were separated into hands and placed in cardboard boxes for shipping.  The boxes prevented the peels from becoming bruised, and they provided a convenient way to distribute bananas to supermarkets that had become major food outlets after World War II.  A few years later United Fruit adopted the new variety and new packing and shipping process.  Soluri describes the great efforts of the banana industry to find a chemical solution to problems associated with agricultural pests.  He points out that the effect chemicals might have on workers was not seriously considered by the banana corporations.  Their concerns were to restore company profits.  Following World War II many companies experimented with chemicals without considering worker safety or the impact of chemicals on the environment.  Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, brought attention to these kinds of problems.  OSHA was established in 1970.

            Soluri acknowledges that his history does not focus on politics.  In his conclusion he refers to “national elites who saw foreign capital and markets as means by which to accumulate wealth and modernize their societies.” (233)  He states that these elites viewed the farm workers as backward people.  He implies that the elites were indifferent to the problems of Honduran workers.  Where I found Soluri’s history particularly interesting was in the sections where he described how Honduran workers saw the jobs available to them on banana plantations.  Some workers found the jobs overly demanding, but others sought them out.  The money they earned working for United Fruit was more than they could make elsewhere.  Additionally the North Coast where the plantations were located provided amenities and diversions that were unavailable in inland villages.  The new jobs created by the need to spray banana plants with Bordeaux spray paid more than weeding and harvesting bananas.  Women also sought jobs on the plantations.  They could earn money by preparing food for workers and washing their clothes.  Once boxing bananas became common, women were used in preparing bananas for the boxing process.  This too exposed workers to harsh chemicals.  Soluri compares a popular exposé of the banana industry by César Ayala with the recollections of former workers who chose to work for United Fruit.  It appears that these jobs did provide opportunities for some people.

            It is clear from Soluri’s account that United Fruit was focused on profit and took every opportunity to reduce costs.  This led to outsourcing production processes whenever possible although chemical sprays remained under the control of the company to ensure quality control.  Independent farmers had to sell their bananas to companies like United Fruit, and they could not sell them unless the bananas had been sprayed at a cost to the independent grower.  The niche market for bananas in the U.S. required a vast transportation and distribution network to get fruit to groceries in a short space of time in order that consumers might have fresh fruit to purchase.  Soluri points out that it is within transportation and distribution, “the places that lay between farms and kitchens” that capital and power are concentrated. (226)  In the last half of the twentieth century bananas have become a common commodity that competes with a great variety of fresh and processed fruit.

            According to a UN organization Honduras exported about 3 percent of the total world banana exports in 2011. (UN Banana Market Review and Banana Statistics)  Ecuador’s banana exports were ten times greater than those of Honduras.  Honduras in 2013 had per capita GDP of $2,291 making it the sixth poorest of the seven Central American countries.  Soluri concludes “the historical record provides little reason to believe that increasing the volume of agro-exports will diminish poverty.” (243)  The CIA World Factbook states that 30 percent of Honduras’ GDP involves exports to the U.S. including apparel and automobile wire harnessing.  Hopefully these occupations will have a more positive impact on the Honduran economy than banana exports.