Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Cortés and not to raise the shipping rates on the National Railway for the
duration of the contract.
Negotiations between English and the growers continued through
April.
31
In early May, a letter published in ElPueblo pointed out that the
contract proposed by English offered growers ''great advantages'' and a
$25,000 guarantee.
32
However, some growers insisted on a $100,000 de-
posit, and apparently the parties failed to strike a deal. Nevertheless, the
negotiations between English and the growers' association revealed the
concernsheldbymanybananafarmers.Theseincludedensuringthatpur-
chasepricesreflectedthebanana'sU.S.marketvalueandcreatingamecha-
nism to verify changes in prices. The proposed pricing system also re-
flected growers' desires to be rewarded for producing heavy fruit bunches
and to have more time between harvesting notices and delivery dead-
lines. The subject of fruit inspectors is absent from the counterproposal,
a perplexing omission given the historic importance of this issue. Finally,
the proposed contract's stipulation restricting exports to Gros Michel ba-
nanas is a reminder that the prospect of a new shipping line did not nec-
essarily create an opportunity to export banana varieties other than Gros
Michel.
Around the same time that Sula valley growers were searching for a
means to loosen United Fruit's stranglehold on shipping, they became
embroiledinacontroversyoverirrigationwater.InFebruary1932,amem-
ber of the Honduran congress proposed reducing the tax on irrigation
water applied to banana farms from ten dollars per hectare to three dol-
lars per hectare. As Congress debated the measure, independent growers
expressed their opposition to the reform. An anonymous grower wrote,
''if they give the water concession they will ruin us; we, Hondurans, do
not want irrigation.''
33
Da Costa Gómez claimed that the tax concession
would result in national growers being ''permanently'' displaced:
We will never be able to offer fruit equal to that produced by the
company and they'll be justified in not accepting it. The company's
production will be sucient to ruin us and buy up our lands that we
would no longer be able to farm due to the high labor costs.
34
A Puerto Cortés grower added that the reform measure would ''harm na-
tional growers whowill not be able to competewith irrigated fruit; there-
fore a greater quantity will be rejected.''
35
The concern of the self-identified ''national'' growers over the irriga-
tiontaxwasrootedintheirbeliefthatthetaxrebatewouldenablethefruit
