Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
the cross-cutting effects of shifting
plantation agriculture
Paradoxically,non-companygrowersfeltthelimitsoftheirautonomy
most acutely when the fruit companies abandoned them. In May 1931,
amid rumors that the United Fruit Company was going to suspend its
operations in Omoa, Mayor Samuel García dispatched a telegram to the
company in order to find out the truth. The mayor received a terse re-
ply from a high-level company o
cial: ''I am notifying you that I have
received orders to suspend indefinitely the purchase and production of
fruit.''GarcíaalsoreceivedatelegramsentbyUnitedFruit'sWilliamTurn-
bull explaining that ''present business conditions do not allow us to con-
tinue absorbing the enormous losses that we have endured for several
yearsinCuyamel,asituationthatwefeelhasnotbeenappreciated.''Mayor
Garcia responded to the grim news by convening an open meeting dur-
ing which some 90 residents from Omoa and surrounding communities
signed a petition addressed to Honduran President Colindres Mejía, ex-
pressing their outrage over the company's decision:
There are more than 500 laborers who are losing their daily work and
along with it their ability to provide for their families. Many years of
struggling, patient labor, perseverance and cooperation with the
company are going for naught simply due to an order, as if the labor of
an entire community were not worth even the tiniest consideration.
41
Theyappealed to the president to intervene in order to prevent the ''death
of the only activity that provides a livelihood for the people.'' García
pointed out that a suspension of banana-growing activities would likely
put an end to local railroad tra
c, leaving the community in isolation.
The petitioners admitted that the region no longer produced ''what it had
in the past,'' but they defended their bananas as being as good as those
cultivated elsewhere in the department of Cortés.
42
One year later, Mayor Garcia's fears became reality when the com-
panybeganremovingbranchlinessituatedbetweenCuyamelandOmoa.
43
Banana growers made public appeals for helpwith finding a way to trans-
port their produce.
44
In a 1932 letter to the Ministro de Fomento, Orellano
Rodríguezexplainedthathe,alongwith25othergrowers,stoodtolosethe
investments that they had made in new banana farms located along Cuya-
mel's railroad line.
45
Theminister'sresponseofferedlittleconsolation:he
informed Rodríguez that the company ''has the right to abandon that sec-
