An ancient 'superfood' sent from heaven
The banana is the perfect fruit in so many ways, from its nutritional and filling substance to its convenient natural packaging. Most of the world enjoys bananas as part of a regular diet, and yet most people don't know that within the history of banana plantations lies political corruption, bloody massacre, and a disease epidemic.
What's more, the banana as we know it today may very well cease to exist within the next 10 years. From a spoil of war, to a weapon of conquest and an abuse of land and labor, the banana's history is surprisingly dark, and the future looks like it may repeat the same mistakes.
Curious to discover more? Click through for everything you need to know about those seemingly innocent supermarket bananas.
In a survey reported by Statista, bananas were the most consumed fruit by Americans in 2021. World Atlas reports that roughly 115.7 million metric tons of bananas are grown globally every year, second only to tomatoes in terms of tonnage produced.
Bananas were first cultivated in South East Asia thousands of years ago. Later they were a spoil of war, taken from ravaged India around 327 BCE by Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great and brought to the Western world.
The banana made its way to East Africa, which later became the epicenter of a devastating slave trade that branched out and reached the Americas. By the early 1500s, enslaved Africans cultivated bananas in plots alongside sugar plantations, though usually to provide shade for more lucrative crops.
There were many different types of bananas back then, like poovan, nendran, and red bananas—most of which looked very different to our modern supermarket bananas.
In the 1800s, captains from New Orleans and New England ventured to the Caribbean in search of coconuts and other goods, and ended up buying some bananas. They bought Gros Michel bananas from Afro-Caribbean farmers in Jamaica, Cuba, and Honduras, which they liked because they grew in large bunches and had thick skin—perfect for shipping.
By the end of the 1800s, bananas were popular in the US because they were affordable, available year round, and doctors endorsed their health benefits. As bananas boomed into the realm of big business, the US decided they wanted to grow their own.
To get access to land, banana moguls lobbied and bribed government officials in Central America—going so far as to fund coups—so they would have allies in power. In December 1910, the exiled former leader of Honduras, Manuel Bonilla (pictured), boarded a borrowed yacht in New Orleans, along with armed accomplices, to set sail for Honduras to reclaim power by whatever means necessary. He was backed by Samuel Zemurray’s banana corporation, which would soon become notoriously known throughout Latin America as El Pulpo (“The Octopus”).
El Pulpo was a US corporation importing bananas that earned its notorious nickname thanks to its long tentacles spread out in several countries. Officially, it was known as United Fruit Company. In Honduras, Bonilla repaid Zemurray’s corporation, which had financed his return to power, with land and concessions.
O. Henry first coined the term "banana republic" in his 1904 short story ‘The Admiral.’ It was inspired by his time as a fugitive in Honduras, where he witnessed US fruit companies plundering the country to grow bananas more cheaply. The term represented politically unstable countries who were economically dependent on bananas as their sole export and product.
In 1928, Colombian banana workers went on strike to demand six-day workweeks (which would finally give them a single day off), access to medical care, a real contract with the company, and to receive money instead of scrips that could only be used at United Fruit-owned stores. The Colombian government responded by deploying 300 soldiers who gunned down banana workers—soldiers whom it was later revealed were likely part of a far-right paramilitary group that the US banana corporations were paying.
By the 1930s, United Fruit completely dominated the region, and even owned over 40% of Guatemala’s farmable land at one point. They cleared rain forests in Costa Rica, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama to build plantations, along with railroads, ports, and towns to house the workers.
People migrated to so-called banana zones because the jobs were relatively well-paid. From Guatemala to Colombia, United Fruit’s plantations grew only Gros Michel bananas on their densely-packed farms, which had little biological diversity. The conditions made them vulnerable to disease epidemics, especially since the infrastructure connecting the farms could quickly spread pathogens.
A fungus called Tropical Race 1 tore through Gros Michel plantations, first in Panama (which is why it was dubbed “Panama disease”) and then Central America, traveling through the same system that enabled big profits and cheap bananas.
Instead of dealing with the problem, banana companies quickly abandoned infected plantations in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala, along with the thousands of farmers that were employed there. The companies then cleared huge tracts of rain forests to establish new plantations elsewhere.
After WWII, the dictatorships with which United Fruit had partnered with in Guatemala and Honduras fell, and new democratically-elected governments soon called for land reform. In Guatemala, President Jacobo Árbenz tried to buy back land from United Fruit—who now had a bad reputation—to redistribute it among landless farmers.
The Árbenz government offered to pay United Fruit a price based on tax records—where United Fruit had underreported the value of the land. El Pulpo struck back with a propaganda campaign against Árbenz and called on its US government connections for help—namely the CIA.
Under the guise of the fear of communism, the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically-elected Árbenz in 1954. While that was a win for United Fruit, that same year in Honduras thousands of their workers went on strike until the company agreed to recognize a new labor union.
Under the economic and political costs that had kicked off with running away from the Panama disease, in the '60s United Fruit decided to switch from Gros Michel to the Cavendish banana, as the latter was resistant to the Panama disease.
Today, United Fruit Company still exists, except it goes by the name Chiquita Brands International. Since bananas are no longer as economically vital in Central America, they’ve lost their grip on Latin American politics.
In 2007, the company admitted to paying US$1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a far-right paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings and some of the worst massacres in Colombia—a group that targeted labor leaders, removed people from lands needed for cultivation, and “liquidated” problem employees.
The AUC was designated by the US as a terrorist group, and Chiquita consequently had to pay a US$25 million fine for violating counterterrorism laws.
Since they require frequent applications of pesticides, Cavendish bananas create hazards for farmworkers and ecosystems, echoing the poor handling of Gros Michel plantations in the past.
Cavendish bananas are sterile as they don’t have seeds, and instead they're bred asexually, meaning each plant is a clone of the previous generation. Without genetic variation, the population lacks resilience to threats.
Despite being resistant to the pathogen that infected Gros Michel bananas, Cavendish farms similarly lack biological diversity, which, in combination with the fact that they’re clones, makes them extra vulnerable to another epidemic.
Cavendish bananas make up 99% of all banana exports. But the variety is now vulnerable to a fungus called Tropical Race 4. Scientists guess the fungus probably started somewhere in Southeast Asia in the '90s, and quickly spread across the globe. Then in 2019, it hit Latin America.
Farms across Colombia, for example, have implemented biosecurity measures to ensure the fungus doesn’t spread. Cement paths were built so workers don’t walk on open soil, the undersides of cars are disinfected before entering, workers change into rubber boots and overalls before entering the farm, and they walk through a sanitizing foot bath made of ammonium before going out to harvest.
Many farmers say the only viable solution is to remove the Cavendish monopoly and diversify banana production. However, the problem lies, as it always does, in the money. Companies think it’s too expensive and complicated to change the US$25 billion industry built around a monoculture, even if that monoculture is under threat of extinction.
Several hundred varieties of banana thrive successfully around the world—some of which are even resistant to the fusarium wilt (Tropical Race) disease. Investing in other bananas on biodiverse farms would make bananas more expensive, but part of the solution to this repeating problem is realizing that bananas are only cheap and accessible year round because of a flawed system.
Big business banana farming, which provides very cheap bananas, is harmful for workers, the environment, and the crop itself. If we want to see bananas in our future, we might have to pay a little more for a truly sustainable product.
Sources: (Statista) (TED-Ed) (Mashed) (Insider) (Medium) (Live Science)
The complex history (and complicated future) of bananas
This common fruit has a bloody past and may soon go extinct
FOOD History
The banana is the perfect fruit in so many ways, from its nutritional and filling substance to its convenient natural packaging. Most of the world enjoys bananas as part of a regular diet, and yet most people don't know that within the history of banana plantations lies political corruption, bloody massacre, and a disease epidemic.
What's more, the banana as we know it today may very well cease to exist within the next 10 years. From a spoil of war, to a weapon of conquest and an abuse of land and labor, the banana's history is surprisingly dark, and the future looks like it may repeat the same mistakes.
Curious to discover more? Click through for everything you need to know about those seemingly innocent supermarket bananas.