In contrast to shaded organic banana production, conventional plantations differ in many ways. The most obvious is that conventional plantations have no plants on them except a monoculture of identical banana trees. These trees usually have a blue bag covering the growing bunch of bananas. The bag is usually impregnated with a nematocide that envelops the bananas in a gaseous cloud during nearly their entire growing period. Further, these plantations spray toxic agricultural chemicals from the air via planes or helicopters and on the ground via spray cans carried by workers. The trees and fruit are sprayed more than 40 times in the 12- to 18-month growing season. Chemical run-off from these plantations is a major problem for wildlife in banana-growing regions.

Because these plantations have cleared all tree cover (except for the limited cover of the banana trees), the ground is exposed to torrential rain (remember, this was rainforest). This leads to extremely large-scale erosion and subsequently vast amounts of soil run-off. On one plantation, we observed a one-centimeter ridge of soil that had been protected from the rain by one of last year’s waste nylon cords. This revealed that the entire plantation had lost about one centimeter of soil to erosion over the previous year. This soil had ended up in the nearby river via the trenches dug in the plantation to facilitate drainage (photo 4, above). Of course, along with this soil run-off are massive quantities of agricultural chemicals.

Most plantations generate large amounts of waste bananas that are then dumped in pits in the field. This waste, which is laden with chemicals, can also create run-off that will reach rivers and streams.

Banana plantations are notorious for abusive working conditions in the plantations and processing facilities. In many cases, workers attempting to organize unions are black-listed by growers (that is, no one will hire anyone on the “black list”). Also, workers are often moved around by companies, hired and fired and re-hired, all to avoid the workers becoming “vested” and thus, the companies avoid paying severance pay. Repetitive-motion injuries (such as carpal-tunnel) are common as workers do heavy tasks over and over (such as cutting bananas from pinzotes or separating the “hands” while grading).

Workers and their families are also exposed to large amounts of agricultural chemicals. Even family members who don’t work in the fields my be exposed through washing or handling a field workers’ clothing or boots. Numerous diseases have been reported (a class-action lawsuit was filed against banana companies by thousands of Costa Rican workers who claim they became sterile due to exposure to one particular chemical).

Even workers in the processing facilities are exposed to chemicals as certain workers spray fungicide on bananas just before they are boxed and others handle contaminated bananas straight from the field.

Finally, banana plantations use large quantities of wooden pallets to transport bananas to distant ports. These pallets are most often made of rainforest wood. However, in Costa Rica, many companies use plantation wood (such as gmelina or eucalyptus) for the pallets. But they use so many pallets that they have ended up consuming most of the wood from the plantations — planted with support from the government — meant to supply other sectors with wood to offset logging of old-growth forests.

To see the photos above as larger images, click on the corresponding number below.

1. Spraying chemicals from the air;
2. Tertiary drainage ditch;
3. Secondary drainage ditch;
4. The river clogged with runoff;
5. Supervisors watching over women cutting and grading bananas;
6. Fungicide spraying prior to boxing;
7. Boxing (without protective clothing);
8. One-time-use pallets.