The future of banana trading.
Q1. Introduction.
Latin America is situated in the southern part of America, on the
equator, between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Lain America is in
the prime location for growing bananas because of the countries
tropical climate. Bananas grow where there is sun and rain all year
round, so that they can fully develop. Looking at my climate graph I
can see that it does rain all year and the temperature doesn't drop
below 6 degrees. It has tropical heat and a rainy season between the
months of January and April.
In Latin America there are seven major exporters of bananas. They are
Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras and
Nicaragua.
Look at Figures 1, 2 and 3 for more information.
Q2. Describing TNCs.
A Transnational country is a company which operates in many different
countries, regardless of their situation or financial difficulties.
TNC's normally have their headquarters based in a developed country,
whilst working their 'branched' factories in developing countries. The
TNC's directly employ millions of people, but the work they do effects
millions more. Many people feel that the TNC's exploit poor countries,
whilst others say that the world economy depends on them. There are
four major TNCs involved in the banana trade, they are Chiquita, Dole
Food Co, Del Monte, and Fyffes.
· Chiquita is based in Ohio, US it farms mainly in Honduras and
Guatemala.
· Dole Food Co is based in California, USA and farms in Costa Rica,
Honduras, Ecuador and Colombia.
· Del Monte is based in Florida and farms in Costa Rica and Guatemala.
· Fyffes is based in Dublin, Ireland and farms in Belize, Guatemala.
All of these TNCs import to the United States, Canada, Europe and the
Asia-Pacific region.
Look at figures 4, 5 and 6 for more information.
Q5. The Alternatives for the future.
There are several companies who are trying to make things better for
the future of banana trading they are COLSIBA, EUROBAN, IUF, US/LEAP,
Fair Trade and many Internet sites and trade unions. All of these
organisations are trying to meet one goal, and that is to help the
banana workers improve their lives. They all do this by targeting
different areas that are in need of improvement, COLSIBA for example
try to improve working conditions by using trade unions, whilst Fair
Trade concentrates on the financial difficulties and some of the
environmental concerns.
COLSIBA is the Co-ordination of Latin American Banana Workers' Unions,
it represents 40 trade unions in 8 countries. COLSIBA was set up in
1993 so that it can respond better to the many problems that banana
plantation workers face, all across the world's main exporting region.
When the outbreak of the Panama disease began the United Fruit ordered their field workers to put disinfectant on their tools and clothing in order to decrease the spread of disease. They burned the diseased plants, which took care of the infected bananas, but companies still had problems with workers transferring diseases. Spreading the disease was not intentional but it happened. This lead the United Fruit to begin research programs to fight the disease in 1923 so that it did not worsen. The US department of agriculture had argued the cultivation a disease resistan species would have a higher success rate, for example, the “Chinese banana.” This fruit has a short shelf life though and was not very marketable to be purchased. So the US and British research program both began breeding programs to develop disease resistant varieties, but sadly this was not successful either. It was difficult to find a product that would work, biology did not work, farms kept moving to healthier land, and this created schisms among companies and the government. The diseases were driving the production costs and soil exploitation up, fruit companies were already under public scrutiny for their land grabs and extensive holdings. They all needed a solution; the solution was when the Cavendish bananas began to be boxed in production, which then opened jobs for women. All of the bananas traveling to the
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Key Question) – How does the global trade in bananas reflect injustice in free trade arrangements?
Up until the age of thirteen, shopping always been torture. Shopping was so bad that I would never buy anything for myself. When I would wear anything other than athletic shorts and a t-shirt, I would have to raid my older sisters’ wardrobe- who just happened to be my size. After losing about twenty pounds in eighth grade, I started to love shopping- much to my parents’ dismay. While trying to find my own personal style, I began to shop at stores similar to Banana Republic and Gap. It soon occurred to me that, although they bear some minor similarities, the difference between Banana Republic and Gap are pronounced.
Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, & Environmental Change in Honduras & the United States combines the fields of Environmental History and Economics to look at the transformation of the banana from a simple Honduran plant into a staple in American kitchens, and how the banana export trade changed cultural practices and biophysical processes that have shaped global economic institutions. In particular, Banana Cultures outlines the commodity chain analysis of the banana export trade, which involves processing and transportation technologies that enabled banana companies to hasten the
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