Banana Games: A Commodity Chain Analysis of Chiquita Bananas
It began with one of those oblivious acts of consumerism we all perform unknowingly several times each day and a rumor five different people told me about how the dining hall microwaves its’ bananas - after removing their plastic wrap casings, that is. Who wants to eat microwaved bananas, and don’t bananas come with their own naturally occurring exterior protectors? I decided then to purchase my bananas at a grocery store down the street with the intention of eat a more fresh and nutritious product. However, by choosing to purchase these bananas I was also making the unconscious decision to play my hand in the global banana game. Taking note of their iconic blue sticker as I brought the beautiful cluster of Chiquitas home, I decided to look deeper into the life of my golden bounty, soon realizing that the scope of this issue was well beyond the limits of a four-page paper. What I found is a story entrenched in the dark histories of farm workers and international corporations and decades of research by committed and passionate individuals, but what I also found is the story of conscious, compassionate consumers enacting positive change and a company who was able to completely reshape the way it does business – for the better. My research ultimately ended with me realizing that I have the tools right in front of me to make a difference, and that whether or not I like it, I am partially responsible for the equitable treatment of banana farmers and the environment in which they are grown. In addition, I witnessed from a first-person perspective just how easy it is (in some cases) to become a knowledgeable buyer. It is evident from the consumers’ perspective that the banana industry, Chiquita specifically, has not gone untested and there are many, many people, even those farthest removed from the epicenter of production, who have enough passion to voice their concerns and to provide a voice to those who don’t have one.
This paper is an attempt to better understand the life of a Chiquita banana before it makes it to the consumer or, essentially, to perform investigative research that places “emphasis on the complicated process that goods undergo before they reach the final consumer” (Topik 2). I began my search by calling the Chiquita headquarters in Cincinatti, Ohio and asking them if they could tell me where bananas in New England typically come from. It is possible that the customer service representative with which I spoke was misinformed or simply unaware, but 10 minutes after placing me on hold divulged to me that there is no way of knowing which country your bananas were grown in. Instead, she gave me the information that I had already gleamed from the website while looking for their phone number: Chiquita bananas are grown within 20 degrees of the equator in the nations of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama (www.chiquitabananas.com). “That’s why you get to enjoy Chiquita’s all year round”, she told me.
Map of Chiquita Banana Farms
http://www.chiquitabananas.com/Banana-Information/find-banana-farm-map.aspx
I decided the next step would be to develop a sense of America’s consumption of bananas and the banana industry as a whole. I found that, by and large, North America and Europe are the principal consumers of bananas on the global market. In 2005, the US and Canada bought “29.4 percent of the world’s net imports in an “open trade regime” that charged no tariff”, much unlike the European Union who purchases their bananas through a complex system of quotas and tariffs created by their well regulated trading policies (Frundt 83). It is estimated that “10 million people are involved in the growing and packing” of bananas worldwide. As of 2005, Chiquita employs 25,000 people, of which 17,000 are in Central and South America (http://www.article13.com). In 2004 its’ net sales were $3.1 billion in 60 countries around the globe. I knew America liked bananas, but I had no idea they loved them quite so much.
Before Chiquita existed there was the United States based corporation known as United Fruit Company. In his book Fair Bananas!, author Henry J. Frundt argues that this corporate predecessor to Chiquita “led the pack of transnational corporations (TNCs) in attacking the tropical landscape to set up growing operations” (Frundt 14). In the book Smart Alliance by J. Gary Taylor and Patricia J. Scharlin, the mindset of United Fruit and the prevailing business atmosphere in the early days of the banana industry are described as follows:
“Exploitation was the only game in town, totally in sync with the big industrializing powers. Central America was the new Wild West. The isthmus between Mexico and South America was there for the taking. And apart from hurricanes, floods, droughts, disease, venomous snakes, and impenetrable jungles, substantial swaths of flat lowlands lay along the coasts with good soils and a dependently hot wet climate, ideal for growing bananas.” (Taylor, Scharlin 62).
For the first half of the 20th century, United Fruit was “the 900-pound gorilla in the banana business,” buying out all of its smaller competitors and forging a close relationship with the US government, as well as exploited its’ workers in Central America (62). Many accredit the ruthless buccaneering of United Fruit for the modern day success of Chiquita bananas.
Labor unions play a huge role in the history of the banana industry, and they got their start when workers began voicing their concern about the actions and policies of United Fruit. The corporation’s response to these first unions was to import labor from what they saw as more “docile” regions and play the outsiders against the insiders to establish a wage advantage (Frundt 98). Soon after, as market conditions recovered and political turmoil was quelled, workers throughout Central America were able to forge strong working alliances without being oppressed by international corporations. Later, in what is known as the “third wave of banana expansion,” beginning in the 1980’s, workers unions were attacked by these same transnational corporations, beginning in Costa Rica. Throughout this third wave banana workers unions were peppered with death threats, physical beatings, and murder, many of which were speculated to have been ordered by Chiquita itself. Frundt argues, “when corporations hold near total control over banana production and trade, it is a major structural impediment to working people earning a living” (14). To this day union organizers still face a great amount of difficulty when trying to negotiate contracts and enact agreements on their farms.
One must ask what are the underlying factors that have historically driven banana unions to organize, despite the ferocious subjugation they have faced from the transnational companies who employ them? What is it like to be a worker on a banana plantation? According to news piece published by International Confederation for Free Trade Unions in 1999, “Central American bananas are produced on large “industrial” scale plantations employing large numbers of relatively poorly paid workers” (www.democracynow.org). A major issue in the production of bananas has historically been the use of toxins and the health risks they pose to workers and the surrounding environment. These pesticides, mainly used to stave off nematodes, are made necessary because of the vulnerable monocultures in which most bananas are grown. In his work Fair Bananas!, author Henry J. Frundt sheds light on the highly toxic nature of banana production, claiming that “chemical exposure often elicits rashes, and at times induced vomiting and permanent cancers” (Frundt 97). Many workers specialize in spraying the plants with highly toxic pesticides and subsequently create toxic puddles beneath the plants where other specialized workers must stand to cut the ripe bananas from their trees. A predominantly female labor force handles the bananas once they make it to the packing plant, where they wash the fruits in chlorine baths and spray them with fungicide before packing. Allistair Smith, the director of the European non-profit Banana Link, which focuses on the practices of large banana producers, said in an interview with the radio show Democracy Now! that “Chiquita is one of the corporations who was said to have used this chemical BDCP” (www.democracynow.org). The pesticide was banned in the United States in 1977 but was then stockpiled and shipped to Central America where it ”was used in plantations across the eleven, twelve countries and have been shown to have directly affected the health of 40,000 workers, who have now been made sterile, male workers.” There is now evidence that women also face extreme adverse effects from the pesticide (www.democracynow.org).
Ariel pesticide spraying of a banana plantation
http://boombanana.blogspot.com/
In 1993, the European Union adopted a “single import policy” for bananas in which all fifteen countries within the union would be imported by European colonies and ex-colonies (www.democracynow.org), probably the result of organizations such as Banana Link and EUROBAN lobbying for the rights of small banana farmers. This meant that Germany, which previously received the majority of its’ bananas from Latin America through Chiquita, could not continue trading freely with the corporation. As a result, Chiquita “lost over half its market in Germany between 1992 and 1995” (www.democracynow.org). Largely as a result of complaints filed by Chiquita, the US filed its’ own complaint with the World Trade Organization claiming that the actions of the EU’s new banana policy violated free trade rules because producers in European colonies were given an unfair advantage in European markets. The WTO was, ultimately, in favor of the United States government.
However, there are many who feel that free trade might not be the best way to strike a balance between producer and consumer in the banana world, and that free trade can “disadvantage farmers and workers,” specifically because “when regulations are loosened or disregarded, product gluts can undercut farmers’ and workers’ ability to negotiate prices and wages” (Frundt 83). Frundt suggest that “…balanced trade offers a rational method for sustaining economic development in areas historically committed to banana livelihoods…export import regulations strengthen marketing and bargaining agreements because they stabilize the conditions within which the agreements are framed” (Frundt 83). He feels, along with many others in the fair trade world, that trade regimes are an excellent strategy to keep banana production and consumption within sensible limits.
In March 2002, not long after an extremely tarnishing 18-page spread was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer citing a slew of gross environmental and social injustices made by Chiquita, the corporation filed US “Chapter 11” bankruptcy. Although, Chiquita has appeared to experts to have “emerged with a mission to pull the company out of the vulnerable commodity market of banana distribution in which they had been trapped” (www.article13.com). In its’ own words, “Corporate Responsibility at Chiquita is an integral part of our global business strategy. It commits us to operate in a socially responsible way everywhere we do business, fairly balancing the needs and concerns of our various stakeholders” (www.article13.org). Chiquita is a model of corporate responsibility in that it places itself in the spotlight of many frameworks for reporting and judgment and therefor allows itself to be judged from many angles. In 2006, the ACCA recognized Chiquita’s CSR report one of seven others to be deemed “excellent.” In 2000, two years before their bankruptcy, the corporation worked with Social Accountability International to adopt the Social Accountability 8000 standard as their labor standard, across all operations. In 2001, Chiquita signed a worker-rights agreement with COLSIBA unions and the IUF and in doing so “committed itself to follow International Labor Organization conventions in all countries, and to ensure that its independent producers did so as well” (Frundt 137). Given the bloody and oppressive history of United Fruit, the signing of this accord was seem as a symbolic act of a new chapter where workers were finally provided the justice that had evaded them since the birth of the banana industry. However, the Chiquita Accord has not been without its’ own fair share of obstacles.
I have really just been able to touch the tip of the iceberg in my research of the secret life of the Chiquita banana. Like many other commodity producers, Chiquita is working hard to shake the image of its dark history, but consumers, workers’ rights advocates, and reporters are not fast to relinquish the grudges they hold, justifiably, against this descendent of United Fruit. Just from a surface level, what is most apparent is the pinnacle role consumers play in the equitable treatment of banana laborers and the environments within which bananas are grown. As evidenced by the Banana War of the mid-nineties, companies will eventually curb their practices to meet the desires of those passionate enough to make their voices heard, organizations like Banana Link and EUROBAN. Americans should continue to follow this model of advocacy, for it does ultimately lead to change. However, a huge part of this “banana game” is played by the everyday consumer, the individual, and the choice they make about whether or not to be conscious about the food they consume. Regardless of their choice to remain oblivious or to enlighten themselves, the answers are at their fingertips.
Works Cited
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