Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
of Standard Fruit and United Fruit subsidiaries, but small-scale cultiva-
tors contributed as well. Beginning in 1925, a growing number of people
solicited land for agricultural activities. Among the many who sought
parcels in 1928 were Porfirio Guerrero and Eladio Zelaya, who each re-
quested 35 hectares in order to plant export bananas. That same year,
Alberto Ortíz, Esteban Bardales, Octavio Robles, Juan Bardales Ortíz, and
Eugenio Orellano each solicited 7 ''forested'' hectares on which they in-
tended to grow bananas.
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In February 1930, a number of residents asked
that the ejidos be rezoned for agricultural use.
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They acknowledged the
importance of ranching in the past but noted that the number of cattle
had fallen considerably in recent years as residents turned increasingly
to banana cultivation on the ejido's ''fertile soils.'' The municipal coun-
cil agreed to redesignate the ejido as agricultural land, and ordered that
fences be erected around existing pastures within a period of six weeks.
One month later, the Governor of Colón approved the measure.
Invoking a contrasting viewof the local landscape, some eighty Sona-
gueran ranchers rose to defend their livelihoods before the council: ''It is
commonknowledgeinthistownthatthemajorityofejidolands...are
notadequateforagriculture.''
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Theycriticizedtheproliferationof banana
farms, a livelihood that from the ranchers' viewpoint ''offered no future''
since after the second harvest the soils would be ''completely exhausted''
and yields would fail to cover production costs. Livestock raising, on the
other hand, had sustained the region since ''time immemorial.'' The peti-
tioners pleaded with the municipality not to ''drown a proven source of
wealth for an unknown one.'' But the ranchers' argument—by no means
unreasonable in light of the ongoing abandonment of banana farms else-
where—was unlikely to convince local o
cials; by 1930, Sonaguera was
Standard Fruit's most important center of banana production and un-
precedented amounts of revenue were flowing into municipal coffers.
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Unsurprisingly, the municipal council dismissed the ranchers' appeal and
instructed them to comply with the new ordinance.
Less than ten years after rea
rming the rights of ranchers to graze
their animals on ejido land, Sonaguera's municipal council reversed its
land-use policy, a reflection of both the changing local economy and the
risingpoliticalpowerof bananagrowers.Small-scalefarmershadenjoyed
little success in challenging the privileges of ranchers until wayward cattle
began finding their way onto the newly established plantations of the U.S.
fruit companies.The arrival of the companies, then, provided small-scale
growers with both economic opportunities and the political leverage nec-
essary to vie for greater control over local resources. What in retrospect
