Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
homelessbythestorm.Foronelongtimeresidentof ElProgreso,thestorm
was a memorable event that brought more than flooding and displace-
ment: ''After the great flood of 1935, the banana farms became diseased.
Sigatoka came.''
1
That the storm and Sigatoka were, and continue to be,
linked in the minds of the region's residents is not surprising. The effects
of Sigatoka, like those of the hurricane, were dramatic and far reaching.
2
Tela Railroad Company employees first observed isolated cases of
Sigatoka, or leaf spot disease, a couple of months prior to the October
flooding.
3
However, it was only in the storm's aftermath that the dis-
ease broke out in epidemic proportions. By early December more than
4,400 hectares of company plantations had ''some degree of infection.''
Six months later, the figure had doubled to 8,900 hectares, and fruit yields
were in decline on some 1,340 hectares.
4
The epidemic intensified during
the second half of 1936 when company o
cials reported that more than
2,800 hectares were out of production. Between 1936 and 1937, the Tela
Railroad Company's banana output fell from 5.8 to 3.7 million bunches.
5
DescribinghisvisittotheNorthCoastinMay1937,aU.S.diplomatwrote:
''the ravages of [Sigatoka] in the farms of the United Fruit Company have
created a state of near-panic in the personnel of that organization and the
disease and efforts being made by the company to combat it were prac-
tically the sole topics discussed in conversations held with ocials of the
Fruit Company.''
6
Sigatoka did not spare non-company growers in the region. In Octo-
ber 1936, Roberto Fasquelle, a prominent San Pedro Sula finquero inde-
pendiente, alerted Cortés Governor J. Antonio Milla that if government
authorities failed to reach an agreement on a means to control the dis-
ease, non-company banana growers would ''disappear.''
7
He provided a
sobering assessment of conditions in banana-growing communities situ-
ated along the National Railway. In Potrerillos, weekly production had
dropped from some forty rail cars to barely four cars. Exports had fallen
by two-thirds in the neighboring municipality of La Pimienta. Condi-
tions were even worse in the Chamelecón district, where ''not one'' of
the more than 1,000 hectares of bananas was Sigatoka free and produc-
tion was ''condemned to disappear.''
8
Fasquelle described the municipali-
ties of Choloma and San Pedro Sula as less affected than the others, but
the pathogen was present on several farms, including his own. Finally,
farms situated along the section of the railroad just south of Puerto Cor-
tés were free from Sigatoka, but ''seriously infected'' with Panama disease.
TelaRailroadCompanyocialsconfirmedFasquelle'sassessment,report-
ing that they were rejecting almost all of the fruit offered for sale by non-
