Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ters.
49
The terms of the leases were very similar to those found in the El
Higuerito contracts: the company agreed to install plantation infrastruc-
ture in return for exclusive rights to purchase export-quality fruit grown
by the lessees. The San Manuel growers assumed responsibility for all as-
pects of production with the notable exception of Sigatoka control which
remained in the hands of the company. In 1960, the Tela Railroad Com-
pany initiated two additional associate grower projects involving eight
former high-level Honduran employees and more than 800 hectares of
land in the Sula valley.
50
That same year, Thomas Sunderland, the newly
installed president of United Fruit, told shareholders that theircompany's
''future'' lay in associate producer programs.
51
In 1961, the company spent
approximately one million dollars on disease control, irrigation, and fer-
tilizer inputs on more than one hundred associate grower farms in Hon-
duras.That year, associate producers sold more than two million bunches
of bananas to the company.
52
Company managers did not publicly state their long-term objectives
for the associate growers program in Honduras, but in private conver-
sations held separately with Honduran and U.S. government ocials in
1960, they confirmed that they were seeking to get out of banana farm-
ing. One U.S. ocial reported that Honduran President Villeda Morales
received the news like a ''body blow.'' At least one member of congress
called for the immediate nationalization of company properties and rail-
roads.
53
No expropriations took place, but pressure from organized labor
prompted Villeda Morales to order the extension of several clauses in
SITRATERCO's contract, including those related to minimum wages,
holidays, medical benefits, and housing, to ''all farms in theTela RR Com-
pany's zone and to future entities who may acquire lands of the com-
pany.''
54
This measure notwithstanding, SITRATERCO's leadership con-
tinuedtocriticizeboththe''poorprices''paidtoassociategrowersfortheir
bananas, and a clause in associate grower contracts that prohibited pro-
ducers from selling fruit rejected by company inspectors to other buyers.
Such measures, the union claimed, tended to drive down the wages paid
to fieldworkers.
55
Camilo Rivera Girón became an associate grower in 1960 after work-
ing for many years for the Tela Railroad Company. Rivera Girón recalled
being at the company's mercy: ''The Tela's fruit inspectors would arrive
and say 'this bunch is not good, that one is no good'—but what were we
goingtodo?Therewasn'tanyotherbuyer.''Herecalledthatthewagespaid
to workers on associate grower farms were ''about half'' of those paid by
the company. In addition, associate growers did not provideworkers with
