This column is the first in a WesFresh (Wesleyan Students for Real, Ethical, Sustainable Habits) series, which will seek to raise awareness about food issues at Wesleyan and in the world.
Snatching a handful of bananas while exiting Usdan is a key part of nearly any student’s campus dining experience. Whether you use them as a quick late night snack or save them to brown for banana bread, the problems associated with the worldwide banana export cannot easily be ignored. Though one of the most popular fruits in America, bananas have a troubled history and an unfortunate reality. Taking a second look at banana consumption brings up a wealth of issues including sustainability, heath concerns, environmental repercussions, and workers’ rights.
The banana problem is not a recent phenomenon. The commercial interests from American companies such as the United Fruit Company have been linked to military action in many countries—from Mexico to Guatemala to Nicaragua. From the Banana Wars at the beginning of the twentieth century to a 2007 trial in which Chiquita Brands International (the latest incarnation of United Fruit) admitted to paying nearly two million dollars to a Colombian paramilitary group long associated with murders of leftist activists, banana politics have shaped the current realities of many countries in ways that are as damaging as they are irrevocable.
Usdan’s bananas come from the company Turbana, a subsidiary of the Fyffes corporation which is owned in part by United Fruit Company. Workers at large banana farms are often poorly paid and kept from forming unions. Five companies (including Chiquita) control at least 80 percent of the banana trade, so buying Fair Trade bananas can be difficult, and buying local is virtually impossible, as they only grow in tropical climates.
Only one type of banana is currently grown for export and consumption: the Cavendish variety. This genetic non-diversity makes bananas extremely susceptible to disease. This means that huge food corporations are pouring more and more money into the development of pesticides to prevent mass crop failure. Many banana plantations are constructed on lands that were formerly rainforests—terrain that is less than ideal for handling storms and flooding, which means plenty of pesticides such as DBCP and fertilizers end up leaking into the water supply. These chemicals have been linked to cancerous tumors and infertility. Adequate filtration systems remove many pesticides prior to human consumption, but many banana plantations do not provide this service to their workers.
Environmental concerns are also of great importance, as many fruit corporations grow their product on large plantations, which take up acres and acres of space. This means environmental destruction to clear large areas for farming as well as the creation of a fragile monoculture. It also means that many small family farms are razed to make way for much larger ones.
It’s not easy to think about how our food choices may have far-reaching consequences, but it is necessary. Food co-ops at Oberlin College have collectively decided to stop purchasing bananas, and many other colleges and universities across America are considering the same thing. The nutritional benefits of bananas can be found in other foods such as oats, cucumbers, and beets—all of which may be purchased locally.
Bon Appétit has the commendable goal of making their food 20 percent local by the end of the school year; eliminating bananas from campus would be a major step in this direction. As good as they may taste, bananas have been at the epicenter of an ugly history for far too long—a history that must be considered every time a student reaches for those yellow piles in Usdan.
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