Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and instability. Born in the department of Ocotepeque, Lara first worked
as a teenager for United Fruit in Guatemala. After contracting malaria,
he returned to Ocotepeque to recover. Between 1937 and 1940 he har-
vested bananas and installed irrigation systems on the plantations of the
Tela Railroad Company. He then worked briefly as a Bordeaux applicator
before shifting to ditch digging. Lara excavated ditches (zanjos)onthree
different farms. In the early 1940s, the company eliminated contractors
for drainage projects and began directly contracting individual paleros
or ditch-diggers. Around 1944, Lara went to Guatemala where he joined
a small guerrilla group comprised of Hondurans who sought to depose
the Carías government. Following this self-described ''adventure,'' he re-
turnedtotheSulavalleyin1950,twoyearsafterCaríassteppeddownfrom
power. Lara found work on a company farm through a Sigatoka foreman
who was married to his niece. Later, he returned to ditch digging.
34
Few workers duplicated the trajectories of individuals like José Maria
Lara.Nevertheless,theyfrequentlyleftbananaplantationstopursuesome
otherlivelihood.Forexample,CantalisioAndinogrewupinasmallfarm-
ing and ranching village outside of Olanchito. He started working for
Standard Fruit during the 1940s when the company was extending its
plantings into the Upper Aguán valley. Cantalisio began in the engineer-
ing department, assisting with land surveys before switching to Bordeaux
spraying. He quit and/or was fired more than once. On such occasions,
Cantalisio returned to his village ''where there was always work,'' albeit
poorly paid (less than half of the prevailing wages on banana farms). In
the early 1950s, he left the company and re-settled in his village where he
tended cattle, raised hogs and cultivated a milpa.
35
For Cantalisio then,
plantation work meant an opportunity to earn higher wages without sev-
ering ties with the village of his birth. Crossing the eco-social boundaries
that separated banana plantations and neighboring villages was not un-
usual in the Aguán valley where many of Standard Fruit's workers lived
in communities situated on the arid slopes that lay above the fertile vega
lands where the companyestablished its banana farms.Village life did not
offer many opportunities for capital accumulation, but it could provide
an escape from the rigors and tedium of plantation life.
In addition to facing cyclical layoffs linked to the production calen-
dar, workers also lost their jobs en masse due to international economic
downturns, wartime shipping restrictions, and the spread of plant patho-
gens. During the 1930s, the conjuncture of international market depres-
sions and the spread of Panama and Sigatoka diseases created an employ-
ment crisis in Colón. In 1934, the region's governor reported that no fewer
