Going Bananas: Excerpts

Peace out, bananas.

The Cavendish Banana. Photo from here. 

It is time to say farewell to the most beloved fruit consumed in America. It unites athletes and pancake enthusiasts alike with its delicious yellow interior and potassium rich, anti-muscle cramping properties. There are days when, in the timespan of breakfast to dessert, I can consume five bananas, easily. A banana sliced into a bowl of cereal for breakfast; snack in-between breakfast and lunch; peanut butter and banana with lunch; pre-swim practice snack; banana bread after dinner. Done. 

Bananas serve as this perfect package of imported sustenance. It is easy, from an American viewpoint, to praise the banana because of its low-carbon footprint, nutritional glory. However, the environmental and political repercussions in the countries that produce the bananas on an industrial scale should outweigh the benefits of satisfying our banana needs, considering not only the history of the bananas themselves, but also the security of the native population, and the environmental implications of intense monoculture.

The original banana loved by all was not the banana we know today: Gros Michel was the precursor and our elder banana-eaters would attest to its superiority in both taste and durability in comparison to the current model, the Cavendish. Gros Michel was completely destroyed by Panama disease– a fungus that infected the entire crop worldwide despite extensive attempts to stop its demise. After the fruit companies looked intensely into a replacement banana, they came across the Cavendish. However, the Cavendish is no longer immune to the new strain of Panama disease, also known as Tropical Race Four (TR4), that is spreading from Southeast Asia. Uh Oh.

Photo. Bananas grow "upside down" and are technically seedless berries. Woah.

 The company United Fruit controlled the majority of the banana trade, and became known as "El Pulpo" (The Octopus) throughout Latin America. In addition to the oligarchical control of bananas (United Fruit and Standard Fruit companies were the two main banana traders), the companies also controlled the politics of the countries they worked with. United Fruit built Guatemala's entire infrastructure during Manuel Estrada Cabrera's presidency. The United States by extension of the companies assisted in coup d’états in several countries in Central America including Guatemala and Honduras.

Bananas are also important for food security of both native populations and populations abroad. Americans consume more bananas than any other fruit, and about the equivalent of apples and oranges combined and the USDA listed them as the 5th (of 40) cheapest snack option, and the cheapest of all of the fruits listed as snacks. This is important when talking about issues like childhood obesity and malnutrition. Accessibility and affordability are huge components of changing the way people eat, and the fruit companies have made bananas both. 

Because of banana's popularity, United Fruit Company had to grow more fruit, and in order to do so, they had to go to the places where it grows naturally: Central America. The company bought and cleared a considerable amount of land, much of which was rainforest. Rainforest soil is nutrient poor, and recovery after any disturbance can take a prolonged amount of time. As Panama disease spread with the first banana variety, the land itself became unproductive (Koeppel 86). This required companies to clear and plant on new land continuously in an effort to outrun the first wave of Panama disease and keep bananas cheap and affordable. This problem appeared to be solved with the Cavendish variety, however it is apparent that Panama disease Round 2 is winning presently. Clearing this much land has eliminated the strong biodiversity of these areas of rainforest. The banana companies eliminate the sources that provide ecological services that we cannot buy or invent. 

Ultimately, our perspective as beneficiaries of the banana market fails to recognize that the loss of bananas will be, and has been, globally disruptive. Though bananas are delicious, and Americans eat more bananas per year than any other fruit, their taste comes at a price. Eating bananas passively condones the brutality in the history of these countries, where the United Fruit company instilled dictator governments that created political instability. Heavy application of pesticides and infiltration into the infrastructure of a country can leave the environment and people of banana exporting countries in physical and mental stress. Bananas would be the last on my list of fruits to boycott given their creamy interiors and affinity to peanut butter, but in light of the inevitable decline of the Cavendish with its history and destructive nature, I am inclined to taper off my banana consumption, or at least, see how this situation ripens.