Banana Republic
In most regions of the US, you can buy a whole pound of bananas—roughly four medium sized Cavendish—for a mere fifty cents (Average). If the country could give a nod to the single most popular product in circulation—food or otherwise—it would go to the ubiquitous yellow fruit. We know it well—the perfect compliment to peanut butter, the quick and handy lunchbox item, the creamy essence to a thick smoothie. It’s chock-full of potassium, nutrients, and sustenance, and the average American consumes 10.4 pounds of it a year (without even breaking $6) (USDA).
Bananas are a staple in every grocery and convenience store. Even the most remote gas station corner shop seems to be stocked with a few bunches. They cover shelves across the country, yet cover none of the land. They have the lowest unit price of any fruit, yet are grown thousands of miles away, travel massive distances in cooled containers, and have a short and sensitive shelf life.
The phenomenon known as the modern banana was made iconic, mass-produced, supplied cheaply—essentially invented by a corporation called United Fruit Company. But before this transnational company transformed the fruit into an innocuous household staple, it was an exotic tropical food.
The banana business was once just an undeveloped economic venture—a small entrepreneurial brainchild. In 1873, American railroad tycoons Henry Meiggs and his nephew, Minor C. Keith, began establishing banana plantations along their railroads in Costa Rica as a way of cheaply feeding their workers (“The Banana Republic”). The idea quickly escalated, and what followed has solidified the banana industry as perhaps the most economically imperial, unjust, and exploitative global trade market in existence.
Meiggs and Keith immediately realized the lucrative potential of the banana on the international scale, especially with control of the railroads, the ports, and Central American governments. Their rapidly developing multinational corporation—United Fruit Company—was soon the largest landowner in Central America (cultivating land largely in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) and the proprietor of the largest private fleet of ships in the world (The Banana Republic).
But United Fruit Company’s influence became increasingly pernicious. The company hand picked Central America’s weakest and most volatile countries and quickly dominated their economies, governments, and social structures. The term “Banana Republic” (coined by late nineteenth century American writer O Henry) has come to describe an entire economy that is dependent on a single product. “Guatemala was chosen as the site for the company’s earliest development activities,” a former United Fruit Company (UFC) executive once explained, “because at the time we entered Central America, Guatemala’s government was the region’s weakest, most corrupt and most pliable” (Kurtz).
After years of corporate and dictatorial occupancy, Guatemalan farmers got fed up. A left wing president named Jacobo Arbenz, known as the Champion for the Peasants, was elected in 1951to reclaim some of the country’s sovereignty (largely through limiting UFC’s contracts and redistributing fallow land to the millions of landless farmers) (Kurtz). This new initiative was not well-received by UFC who—thanks to close ties with previous dictators—had grown accustomed to contractual low tax and wage rates and duty-free imports.
The aggravated corporation responded by enlisting the help of a powerful body: the US government. This worked in their favor because the top tier of government officials was laden with UFC family and business connections (Kurtz). President Eisenhower and the CIA (headed by a former United Fruit employee) soon issued instructions that these Guatemalan "communists" should be killed, and noted that good methods were "a hammer, axe, wrench, screw driver, fire poker or kitchen knife" (Hari). A bloody, but successful coup was then carried out in June of 1954 by a US implemented rebel group. Arbenz was usurped and replaced by US-backed tyrant, Castillo Armas, who went on to kill more than 200,000 people (Hari). Arbenz declared that the people’s “crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which affected the interests of the United Fruit Company,” a statement that was quickly lost in history as UFC reclaimed their land and the banana trade unions were banned (The Banana Republic).
Dictators thrived under the banana dynasty while US fruit prices remained low. In the US, the banana industry was having a profound effect on marketing and PR, creating a catchy character and jingle—Senorita Chiquita Banana. She was broadcast on television and radio, epitomizing the health, happiness, and exuberance of the country’s favorite superpower corporation. The banana was the first fast food—always cheap, yellow, and delicious.
However, a serious problem—a potential catastrophe—had arisen abroad as a result of this mono-crop, and this time, imperial dominance was not a solution. UFC had originally capitalized on one particular type of banana, the Gros Michael, and had reproduced it exclusively on vast plantations (Hari). Scientists warned UFC of the risks of such an enormous monoculture. Disease is a fatal threat to single-organism mass production, and in the early 1900s, a deadly fungus called Panama disease plagued banana plantations across the world, wiping out the entire Gros Michael variety. At the last minute, the industry was saved by the Cavendish, an inferior, yet supposedly disease resistant variety (Kurtz). It was convenient and cheap, but UFC’s refusal to diversify was a knowingly unsustainable response.
And in predicted fashion, Panama disease has re-appeared in an even more lethal form, infecting Cavendish throughout the East and much of Africa. The fungus will inevitably arrive in Latin America, perhaps in as many as thirty or as few as five years, but eventually infecting Cavendish bananas everywhere (Kurtz). The banana industry has done little to prevent the spread of the disease or to genetically modify a new banana. A perplexing passivity, but also perhaps a recognition that years of unfair profit will always ultimately be overtaken by nature, the great equalizer.
A small entrepreneurial venture took a simple fruit and created an exploitative, empire-driven, self-profiting global power. United Fruit Company had free-reign of banana production and instead of pursuing equity, it used its position of influence to maximize its own gains, ensuring that any deficit was assumed by the powerless. And after rescuing every easily salvageable penny, away the industry (and the banana it created) will go, destroyed by a gust of human and natural forces.
"Average Retail Food and Energy Prices, U.S. City Average and Midwest Region." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
Hari, Johann. "Why Bananas Are a Parable for Our times." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 22 May 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2013.
Kurtz-Phelan, Daniel. "Big Fruit." New York Times. N.p., 2 Mar. 2008. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
"The Banana Republic: The Myth of the United Fruit Company." Myths of Latin America. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.
"USDA Chart: Bananas and Apples Remain America's Favorite Fresh Fruits." USDA: Economic Research Service. N.p., 27 Aug. 2012. Web. 14 Dec. 2013.