Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
company growers.
9
By the end of theyear, only fourof eleven municipali-
ties in the department of Cortés continued to export bananas.
10
Between
1935 and 1937, non-company exports from the Sula valley fell from 3.6 to
1.7 million bunches.
A few months after receiving Fasquelle's letter, a concerned Governor
Millawarnedo
cialsinTegucigalpathat''withoutthebanana,therewon't
be money on the North Coast to import goods, the customs houses will
lose revenues, as will the municipalities that depend so much on banana
taxes.''
11
He added that the National Railroad stood to lose its primary
source of shipping revenues. Finally, the Governor noted that Sigatoka
threatened production of plantains, ''the bread of the poor.'' In early 1937,
the U.S. consul at Puerto Cortés reported that shrinking company and
non-company payrolls were leading to the ''curtailment of money in cir-
culation.''
12
The impact of the epidemic on both banana production and
the North Coast economy, then, was severe and swift. However, political
leaders in Tegucigalpa were slow to react to the crisis, prompting the fruit
companies, non-company growers, and regional government ocials to
initiate control efforts.
When Sigatoka struck the Sula valley, the Tela Railroad Company's
research department had been cut back to three scientists following Sam-
uel Zemurray's takeover of company operations.
13
Zemurray apparently
thought little of professional scientists, an opinion that some company
scientists attributed to his belief that Panama disease gave United Fruit an
advantage over its smallercompetitors so long as the companycould con-
tinuetorelocateproduction.
14
But the speed with which Sigatoka lowered
production levels prevented the banana companies from ''running'' from
the problem and compelled a threadbare research staff under the leader-
ship of Dr. Vining Dunlap to explore ways to control the epidemic. For-
tunately for Dunlap and his colleagues, Sigatoka had been described in
scientific papers prior to 1935. The first documented incidence of the dis-
ease occurred on Java in 1902. Ten years later, a widespread outbreak oc-
curred in the Sigatoka district on the island of Vitu Levu, Fiji—an event
that gave rise to the disease's popular name. Laterepidemics caused major
damage to banana farms in Australia (1924) and Ceylon (1928). The first
reports of Sigatoka in the Americas came from Surinam and Trinidad in
1933. Between 1934 and 1938, Sigatoka caught the attention of observers in
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico,
Panamá, and the Windward Islands.
15
Atleasttwotheorieshavebeenproposedtoexplaintheintercontinen-
tal spread of Sigatoka. In 1962, Robert Stover speculated that air currents