Banana Plantation
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A banana plantation is a commercial
agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...
facility found in
tropical climate Tropical climate is the first of the five major climate groups in the Köppen climate classification identified with the letter A. Tropical climates are defined by a monthly average temperature of or higher in the coolest month, featuring hot te ...
s where
banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...
s are grown.


Geographic distribution

Banana plants may grow with varying degrees of success in diverse climatic conditions, but commercial banana
plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
s are primarily found in
equator The equator is the circle of latitude that divides Earth into the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemispheres of Earth, hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about in circumferen ...
ial regions, in banana exporting countries. The four leading banana export countries worldwide are
Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
,
Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...
,
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
, and
Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...
. Ecuador provides more than 33% of global banana exports. In 2004, banana producing countries totaled 130. Production, as well as exports and imports of bananas, are nonetheless concentrated in a few equatorial countries. 75% of total banana production in 2004 was generated in 10 countries.
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, Ecuador,
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
produced half of total bananas.
Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...
and
Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
countries led banana production up to the 1980s, and Asian nations took the lead in banana production during the 1990s.
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
n production levels have remained mostly unchanged.


Elements

Banana
plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
s, as well as growing the fruit, may also package, process, and ship their product directly from the plantation to worldwide markets. Depending on the scope of the operation, a plantation's size may vary from a small family farm operation to a corporate facility encompassing large tracts of land, multiple physical plants, and many employees. Production-related activities on a plantation may include cultivating and harvesting the fruit, transporting the picked bunches to a packing shed, hanging to ripen in large bunches, dividing large bunches into smaller market-friendly bunches, sorting, labeling, washing, drying, packing, boxing, storing, refrigeration, shipping, and marketing. Depending on the scope of the operation, other activities may include drying, food preparation, tourism, and market research.


Soil

Bananas will grow and fruit under poor soil conditions but will be less productive without deep, well-drained soil; forest loam, rocky sand, marl, red laterite, volcanic ash, sandy clay, or even heavy clay. The key element in soil type for successful banana plant growth is good drainage. Alluvial soils of river valleys are ideal for banana growing. Bananas prefer an acid soil.


Physical plant

Physical plants on banana plantations, aside from growing fields, may include facilities or machinery for plant propagation, cultivation, labor housing, fertilization and pest mitigation, harvesting assists such as tractors or overhead cable systems, washing tanks, storage buildings, boxing or bagging, shipping docks, offices,
public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...
/
tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...
, and general maintenance. Cultivation techniques specific to the type of banana produced may dictate the specific physical plant makeup. Much of banana cultivation since the mid-1950s has centered around a single
monoculture In agriculture, monoculture is the practice of growing one crop species in a field at a time. Monocultures increase ease and efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting crops short-term, often with the help of machinery. However, monocultur ...
: The
Cavendish banana Cavendish bananas are the fruits of one of a number of banana cultivars belonging to the Cavendish subgroup of the List of banana cultivars#AAA Group, AAA banana cultivar group (triploid cultivars of ''Musa acuminata''). The same term is also use ...
. The ravages of Panama Disease in that particular
cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...
may cause a shift in variety selection, subsequently causing a major change in the physical plant structure of banana plantations.


Economy

Banana growing is a significant economic engine in many banana-exporting countries because it is
labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
-intensive, delivers a relatively quick return on effort and investment, provides a weekly
income Income is the consumption and saving opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. Income is difficult to define conceptually and the definition may be different across fields. F ...
year round, and the crop recovers quickly from hurricanes and other natural disasters. Banana industry
export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is a ...
s worldwide total over 100 million tons in a market which generates over US$5 billion per year and employs millions of workers.


Farming techniques

Banana plantations generally follow one of four major agricultural techniques:
Intensive farming Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of arable farming, crop plants and of Animal husbandry, animals, with higher levels ...
, sustainable farming,
organic farming Organic farming, also known as organic agriculture or ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2024 on organic production and labelling of ...
, and fair trade farming. Intensive agricultural technique, which requires clearing almost all native vegetation from tracts of land, then densely planting and fertilizing the crop, may produce the highest yield of fruit per acre. However, it is viewed by environmental scientists as a technique which involves a history of high risk for damage to the local environment, and health risk to the agricultural workers.


Sustainable farming

As with broader
sustainable agriculture Sustainable agriculture is agriculture, farming in sustainability, sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an ...
, sustainable banana production aims to integrate three main goals: environmental
stewardship Stewardship is a practice committed to ethical value that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources. The concepts of stewardship can be applied to the environment and nature, economics, health, places, property, information ...
,
farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...
profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...
ability, and prosperous
farming Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place (geography), place, set of Norm (social), norms, culture, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Ide ...
. Producing goods without depleting an ecosystem's natural resources is a key goal of sustainable banana farming. The further goals of farm profitability and prosperous farming communities address free market viability issues which might threaten the viability of the business, rendering the ecological sustainability efforts moot. Because of the lower per-acre crop yield and higher wage cost intrinsic to this type of farming, profitability is addressed by the introduction of a price premium charged for the product at market. Such premiums are readily paid by a segment of the consumer market which places a value on the benefits of sustainable farming.


Organic farming

According to the United Nations, "no information is available regarding how many hectares are currently under conversion or how many producers are planning to convert to organic production methods." However major banana producers in 2008 indicated they were responding to demands for organic bananas with new facilities tailored to that market.


Fair Trade farming

Some consumers are willing to pay a premium price for a product, including bananas, if the means of production are consistent with the philosophies of Fair Trade. The United Nations has published a description of fair trade banana production which states, "for banana producers this means they obtain a price which covers the cost of production and an additional price premium to be invested in social, environmental or quality improvements."


Banana farming in flood prone areas

Sand deposition from flood makes soil unsuitable for growing other food crops due to very low nutrient availability, low water holding capacity and poor physical attributes. Thus more time and effort is required to completely restore the land into its original state after the sand deposition. As a result, farmers face difficulties to go back to normalcy and sustain their life. There are various strategies developed so far to revitalize flood degraded soil. However, most of the strategies require higher initial investment and/or take longer time to restore due to which farmers are unable to generate income as before.


Method of establishing banana orchard in flood deposited sandy soil

Banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...
can be grown in variety of soil. However, while planting in flood prone area and sand deposited soil, regular management practice should be slightly amended. If sand deposition is above 0.5 m and the area gets inundate for longer duration (more than 2–3 days) during monsoon, then such site should not be considered for banana plantation. These are the necessary things to be considered in each step of banana farming in flood affected area: I. Variety selection In flood affected areas, there is always a high chance of banana plant being submerged in flood during monsoon. If it is fully submerged for more than two days, plant can eventually die. Therefore tall variety plants with deep root system should be planted in such areas. In Nepal, people usually grow malbhog variety of banana in the areas which are prone to annual flood but are not inundate for longer than three days. Malbhog variety grows up to the height of 5 m and root goes down to more than 1 m deep into the soil. Production is quiet lower compared to hybrid varieties but fetch good market price because of its taste. II. Propagation material In Nepal, banana is propagated exclusively using suckers. Suckers are lateral shoot that develops from the rhizome near the mother plant and are categorically of two types, sword sucker and water sucker. Generally, sword suckers are preferred over water suckers as the plant developed from water suckers are weak and take longer to bear fruits. Sword suckers can be easily distinguished because of its well developed base with narrow sword shaped blades at the early stages. Two to four months old suckers from healthy and high yielding mother plant should be selected for propagation. III. Planting method Banana suckers are usually planted in a 0.2 to 0.25 m furrow or pit of size 0.6x0.6x0.6 m3 at a depth of 0.3 m. But in flood affected areas, suckers should be planted in a pit of size more or less equal to 1 m3. The pit is filled with mixture of topsoil and farmyard manure at a 1:1 ratio and sucker is planted at 0.5 to 0.75 m depth depending upon the height of sand above original ground level. A total of 2 x 3 m spacing should be maintained between the plants. IV. Crop management Crop management begins with the planting, continues with crop maintenance during growth and development, and ends with crop harvest, storage and distribution. For good harvest, crop management strategy should be contextualized based on the soil type, topography, climate and availability and affordability of inputs.


Social aspects


Early benefits in tribal/clanship culture

Certain aboriginal
clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...
ships benefited from early development of intensive banana cultivation by expanding previously territorial land views into concepts of
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...
inter-clan trading relationships.


Labor conditions

Labor conditions in the banana industry have historically drawn attention both in criticism of the traditionally poor industry
working conditions {{Short description, 1=Overview of and topical guide to working time and conditions The following Outline (list), outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to working time and conditions: Legislation * See :Labour law * Collective ...
, and more recently in attempts by labor advocacy groups and some producers to improve labor conditions. Workers on banana plantations in
Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...
have been exposed to
pesticides Pesticides are substances that are used to pest control, control pest (organism), pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others (see table). The most common of these are herbicides, which account for a ...
which have been found to cause various health conditions including sterility. Banana industry advocates maintain that exposure levels were too low to produce health issues, but juries in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
found Dole Food Company guilty of specific cases of worker sterility related to pesticide exposure in the late 1970s. One successful lawsuit presented evidence that Dole continued to use the pesticide DBCP on banana plantations in
Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...
after the agent was found by the manufacturer to cause health problems and was banned in California in 1977. The jury found the chemical manufacturer,
Dow Chemical The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., ...
, 20% liable and Dole 80% liable because Dow had warned Dole of the dangers of aerial spraying in the presence of workers, yet evidence presented in court indicated Dole continued using the agent in close proximity to workers on its Nicaraguan banana plantations. Financial liability in the case was later stricken because of international jurisdiction issues, however the finding of culpability by the jury was left intact.Spano, John.
"Dole must pay farmworkers $3.2 million"
- ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. - November 6, 2007.
Child labor Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...
on banana plantations has also historically been a heated labor issue.
Labor unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
,
UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...
, and others have resisted the use of child labor as young as 8 on banana plantations, and have won concessions in some countries such as
Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...
, which instituted a minimum worker age of 15 years. In Sub-Saharan Africa, banana plantations have had a tradition of utilizing child labor that dates to the 19th century and thrives in modern times.Loretta Elizabeth Bass. ''Child Labor in Sub-Saharan Africa''
Lynne Rienner Publishers Lynne Rienner Publishers is an independent scholarly and textbook publishing firm based in Boulder, Colorado. It was founded in 1984 and remains one of the few independent publishers in the United States. It publishes primarily in the fields of ...
, Boulder CO, 2004, , p.32


See also

* * Banana industry * Franja Transversal del Norte


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banana Plantation Banana production Plantations