Bananas Are Dying—Killed By Corporate Monoculture - Part 2

by Heidi Stevenson

Poisons

A nematode pesticide developed by Dow Chemical, dibromochloropropane (DBCP), was banned in the U.S. in 1979. DBCP causes cancer, is a neurotoxin known even to cause birth defects, and causes severe reactions from contact with it. It kills fish and many other aquatic creatures.

United Brands' response was to continue using DBCP in other countries.

Guatemalan Coup

Throughout its history, United Fruit-Chiquita operated a scorched earth policy against anyone and anything that stood in the way of short term profits. Nothing seems to have been too evil.

Encouraged by Chiquita, the CIA carried out a 1954 coup, which overthrew the legitimate Guatemalan government. Jacobo Arbenz, the president, had implemented an act much like the United States' Homestead Act, which allowed uncultivated portions of plantations -- code word for a monoculture banana tract -- to be appropriated for the people's use. His goal was the same as the Homestead Act, to create a nation of landowners. The corporate landowners were paid the tax appraisal value of the land.

Connections With Colombian Narcotics Traffickers

Colombia's military government is propped up by the United States. When the U.S. itself doesn't take matters into its own hands, local paramilitary narcotics gangs do the job of murdering union leaders and workers who have tried to organize, especially in banana fields. Since 1985, at least 4,000 have been killed or have disappeared during strikes or while organizing workers.

Known collaborators of these gangs include Chiquita. The attorney for a lawsuit filed in 2007 by some of the victims' families stated, "It was about acquiring every aspect of banana distribution and sale through a reign of terror." Chiquita claimed that it had been paying protection money to protect its employees, who they claim had been threatened if they didn't pay. The company does not explain how this makes sense when the only employees killed were those involved with union organizing.

Propaganda

One of the core techniques of any successful agribusiness corporation is propaganda. United Fruit was a master.

For a nominal fee, in 1962 American schools were provided with packages that contained lessons about bananas, information about Central American countries (obviously not delineating its own activities in destroying them), banana recipes nicely formatted into a folder, and teaching tools, including a wall chart, movies, and a teacher's manual on how best to use them.

That same year, the Chiquita logo was affixed to bananas and an advertising campaign to convince the public of their superiority was launched.

Discarded bananas were turned into a profit center. In 1966, a factory was built in Honduras to produce banana puree from discards. It took some time to realize a profit, but by the 1980's banana puree started to show up in ice cream, yogurt, and other similar foods. Just think -- that prepared food with the listed ingredient of banana was very likely made from rejected bananas.

In 1967, after Del Monte entered the banana business, United Fruit gave 90,000 full color recipe cards, along with peanut butter sandwiches to U.S. schools.

Of course, when propaganda fails and bad PR is about to be produced, Chiquita falls back on the time-honored technique of suppression. In 1998, a particularly ugly bit of Chiquita's activities were about to be exposed by the Cincinnati Enquirer. The investigative reporter, Mike Gallagher, dug up clear documentation showing:

• Chiquita controlled several supposedly independent banana companies to hide assets.
• Chiquita continued to use banned pesticides, in spite of an agreement with environmentalists.
• Chiquita security guards used brute force against employees.
• Chiquita had the residents of a village evicted and their town bulldozed by calling in the Honduras military.

The technique used by Chiquita to get the Cincinnati Enquirer to pull the story were to ruin the career of Mike Gallagher. He was accused of hacking into their e-mails. As a long term and well respected investigative reporter, one must wonder why he'd have used such a klutzy method. It's surmised that he likely got the information from employees, who could have been at risk had he told the truth. Of course, this method of gaining information is time-honored by the profession. One of Edward R. Murrow's most significant documentaries, "Factories in the Field", was produced through such techniques. "History of the Standard Oil Company" by Ida Tarbell would never have been made, either.

By using the threat of lawsuit against a newspaper that had significantly less money to defend itself or its reporter, Chiquita was successful in keeping the story from the general public.

The "Solution" Being Suggested

So, what solution is being bandied about for the coming tragic loss of bananas five to twenty years from now? This is even scarier than all that Chiquita has done to this point. The primary suggestion offered is genetic engineering. Scientists are already at work mapping the banana's genome. Already, there are genetic experiments to modify bananas with the hepatitis B vaccine and with fish. That this sort of solution is nothing more than the next, utterly insane, step in a food system already mad with monoculture seems to be of no concern. The time of the mad scientist is now.

Return to Page 1

References: