Banana production in Honduras
Encyclopedia
Economy of Honduras
The economy of Honduras is based mostly on agriculture, which accounted for 22% of its gross domestic product in 1999. Leading export coffee accounted for 22% of total Honduran export revenues. Bananas, formerly the country's second-largest export until being virtually wiped out by 1998's...
. In 1992, the revenue generated from banana sales that year accounted to US$287 million and along with the coffee industry accounted for some 50% of exports. Honduras produced 861,000 tons of bananas in 1999. The two American multinational corporations, Chiquita Brands International
Chiquita Brands International
Chiquita Brands International Inc. is an American producer and distributor of bananas and other produce, under a variety of subsidiary brand names, collectively known as Chiquita. Other brands include Fresh Express salads, which it purchased from Performance Food Group in 2005...
and the Dole Food Company
Dole Food Company
Dole Food Company, Inc. is an American-based agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Westlake Village, California. The company is the largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, operating with 74,300 full-time and seasonal employees who are responsible for over 300...
and responsible for most Honduran banana production and exports.
History
Honduras began exporting bananas in the late nineteenth century, and the trade grew rapidly. Initially, in the 1870s most banana production was confined to the Bay Islands, the mainland did not begin serious production until about 1880. The U. S. Consul reported that in 1894 goods worth almost $350,000 were exported to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, through Puerto Cortés
Puerto Cortés
-Geography:It is on the Caribbean Sea coast, north of San Pedro Sula and east of Omoa, at 15.85° N, 87.94° W. It has a natural bay.It is Honduras's main sea port and it is considered the most important seaport in Central America...
, the region's main port, and by 1903 it had almost tripled to over $900,000. Much of this export was in the form of the growing banana trade, between 1894 and 1903 the trade had grown almost four-fold from somewhat over 600,000 stems to over 2 million. Shipping had increased as well, from 4 steamers a month bound for the United States to 18, and the destination ports expanded from only New Orleans to include Mobile
Mobile, Alabama
Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest...
, Philadelphia and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
.
The initial growth of the trade was from local banana growers. A census of 1899 revealed that northern Honduras had over 1,000 people in the region between Puerto Cortés and La Ceiba
La Ceiba
La Ceiba is a port city on the northern coast of Honduras in Central America. It is located on the southern edge of the Caribbean, forming part of the south eastern boundary of the Gulf of Honduras...
(and inland as far as San Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula is a city in Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country, in the Valle de Sula , about 60 km south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean. With an estimated population of 638,259 people in the main municipality, and 802,598 in its metro area , it is the second...
) tending bananas, most of them small holders. This numerous class was able to expand production, take over communal lands and win the political struggle with cattle ranchers over land control in the early decades of the twentieth century.
In the early years of the industry, banana growers delivered their fruit to the coast where steamers from a variety of U. S. based shippers purchased them. However, the steamship companies were gradually merged until only a handful remained, and these were soon to be dominated by the Vaccaro brothers of New Orleans, who founded the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company (eventually to become Dole) in 1899. Because northern Honduras had a poorly developed transportation network, only farms located along major streams, the few existing railroads on in the immediate vicinity of the coast were viable to participate in the export trade. Thus, the steamship companies needed to invest in constructing a local infrastructure of railroads that would expand the area available for cultivation. By 1902 local railroad lines were being constructed on the Caribbean coast to accommodate the expanding banana production.
The Honduran government, operating on Liberal economic policies that had been in place since 1876, made significant concessions of land and tax exemption to anyone who would open up agricultural land. While some Honduran producers were able to take advantage of these opportunities, the most significant concessions went to U. S. based companies that had the capital to purchase and develop land quickly. Companies like the Tela Railroad Company were granted land concessions in exchange for building railroad. In its 1912 concession, the Tela Railroad Company received 6,000 hectares of national land (that is land that was deemed vacant) for every 12 kilometers of track they laid, on the route from Tela to El Progresso, laid out in alternate blocks on both sides of the rail lines.
Following their first concessions in 1912, U. S. based concerns would achieve more or less complete control of the productive alluvial plains of Honduras' Atlantic coast. The area around Puerto Cortés was dominated by the Cuyamel Fruit Company
Cuyamel Fruit Company
Cuyamel Fruit was a Honduran fruit company founded by Samuel Zemurray in 1910, to export fruit inland from Puerto Cortés, Honduras. Zemurray started as a banana retailer in Mobile, Alabama and moved to Honduras in order to participate in growing and exporting fruit...
, the La Ceiba region by Standard Fruit, and Tela and Trujillo were controlled by United Fruit's subsidiaries, the Tela Railroad Company and the Trujillo Railroad Company. By 1929, the United Fruit Company operated in over 650000 acres (2,630.5 km²) of the country as well as controlling the major ports.
Initially, Honduran producers focused on growing the Gros Michel type of bananas, which had important characteristics that made them easy to store and ship and appealed to consumers in North American markets. However, in the early 1920s, banana producing areas began suffering from a blight known as the "Panama Disease
Panama disease
Panama disease, a Fusarium wilt, is a banana plant disease caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum. The fungus attacks the roots of the banana plant. The disease is resistant to fungicide and cannot be controlled chemically.-History:...
" which, combined with soil exhaustion occasioned by monocrop agriculture led to a decline in many parts of northern Honduras. The companies sought to restore production by rerouting railroads and renegotiating concessions so as to bring more virgin land into cultivation. In addition they began to replace the Gros Michel with the Cavendish
Cavendish banana
The Dwarf Cavendish banana is a banana cultivar originally from Vietnam and China. It became the primary replacement for the Gros Michel banana in the 1950s after crops of the latter were devastated by the Panama disease. The name 'Dwarf Cavendish' is in reference to the height of the pseudostem,...
variety of banana which had some resistance to the disease.
Political Implications
General Sierra's efforts to perpetuate himself in office led to his overthrow in 1903 by General Manuel BonillaManuel Bonilla
General Manuel Bonilla Chirinos was President of Honduras from 13 April 1903 to 25 February 1907, and again from 1 February 1912 till 21 March 1913....
, who proved to be an even greater ally of the banana companies than Sierra had been. Companies gained exemptions from taxes and permission to construct wharves and roads, as well as permission to improve interior waterways and to obtain charters for new railroad construction.
At one time the American government trained the Honduran army and air force to protect the supremacy of the banana companies operating in the country. The growth of production of bananas in Honduras soon saw the industry constituting some 88% of Honduran exports at its all-time peak, centering the economic activity of the country almost entirely on the Atlantic coast region, with the economic center at the coastal city of San Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula
San Pedro Sula is a city in Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country, in the Valle de Sula , about 60 km south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean. With an estimated population of 638,259 people in the main municipality, and 802,598 in its metro area , it is the second...
rather than Tegucigalpa
Tegucigalpa
Tegucigalpa , and commonly referred as Tegus , is the capital of Honduras and seat of government of the Republic, along with its twin sister Comayagüela. Founded on September 29, 1578 by the Spanish, it became the country's capital on October 30, 1880 under President Marco Aurelio Soto...
.
In 1964, Castle & Cooke
Castle & Cooke
Castle & Cooke, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based company that was once part of the Big Five companies in territorial Hawaii. The company at one time did most of its business in agriculture...
bought out the Standard Fruit Company, and concentrated on the production of bananas and pineapples under the Dole label in Honduras. In September 1974, Hurricane Fifi
Hurricane Fifi
Hurricane Fifi was a catastrophic tropical cyclone that killed between 3,000 and 10,000 people in Honduras in September 1974, ranking it as the fourth deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record. Originating from a strong tropical wave on September 14, the system steadily tracked...
devastated some 60% of Honduras' agricultural production, and many of the plantations had to be abandoned, seriously affecting the economy. In response, the redundant plantation workers formed the Las Isletas Peasants Enterprise, where they harvested the bananas independently and reaped the profits, producing one million boxes of bananas in 1976 and four million in 1977. Las Isletas attempted to sell the fruit directly through the Union of Banana Exporting Countries at one stage, resulting in the arrest 200 militant members of Las Isletas and a raid on the association's headquarters under pressure by the Standard Fruit Company who feared being outlawed by the process.
In the mid 1990s, the Honduran economy went into severe recession which hit the banana and coffee industries hard by sending world prices soaring.
Although the economy recovered significantly in 1996, the banana industry in Honduras was struck hard by the lasting impression of Hurricane Mitch
Hurricane Mitch
Hurricane Mitch was the most powerful hurricane and the most destructive of the 1998 Atlantic hurricane season, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph . The storm was the thirteenth tropical storm, ninth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the season. Along with Hurricane Georges, Mitch...
in late 1998, a Category Five Hurricane which was considered the worst in 200 years, with winds reaching 200 mi/h and inundating land with excessive precipitation drowning many of the crops. Hurricane Mitch is believed to have destroyed over 50%, possibly as high as 80% of the banana and coffee crops in 1998, costing an estimated $3 billion in damage.
Since 2000 the industry recovered, although the country is still one of the poorest in Central America.
In 2003, the News Scientist reported that global banana production was under threat by disease and may be wiped out within ten years if preventative measures for not taken to protect against it. Scientists from the banana industry in Honduras responded to the potential crisis by implementing new large-scale breeding schemes in a new FHIA variety. This FHIA banana crop is resistant to major diseases and pests, but is also highly productive and efficient. The scheme in Honduras is financed by the multinational United Brands.