Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
With the Southeast Asia expeditions still in the field, researchers
in Honduras initiated trials of several cultivars maintained at Lance-
tilla, the company's experimental garden near Tela. 91 In 1962, the research
staff reported that three members of the Cavendish group—Giant Caven-
dish,Valery, and Grand Nain—were giving ''extremely high production.''
United Fruit test-marketed boxed Valery bananas in the U.S. Midwest
and received a favorable consumer response. An independent taste panel
found both the flavor and aroma of the Valery to be ''distinctly superior''
to that of the Gros Michel. 92 By the end of 1963, United Fruit workers
had planted nearly 4,400 hectares of Valery bananas and built 29 boxing
plantsinHonduras. 93 Twoyearslater,virtuallyallofthecompany'sCentral
American farms were planted with Panama disease-resistant, Cavendish
varieties. 94
Ironically, banana breeders considered both Giant Cavendish and
Valery varieties to be closely related to Lacatan—the cultivar that U.S.
mass markets had largely rejected in the 1920s.Yet, by the 1960s, new po-
liticalandagroecologicalcontextsinHonduras,andtheexpansionofself-
serve supermarkets in the United States enabled boxed Cavendish vari-
eties to become a viable solution to a problem that was more than half a
century old. The export banana industry's conversion to Cavendish vari-
eties is noteworthy because in contrast to the history of other major food
crops, hybridization did not play a significant role in reshaping produc-
tion processes following World War II. The varieties that replaced Gros
Michel bananas were popular cultivars from South and Southeast Asia.
Forexample, United Fruit'sValery plant stock had been collected by Otto
Reinking in the 1920s during his excursion through Saigon (Vietnam).
After dramatically reducing the biological diversity of lowland tropical
landscapes in Central America for seventy-five years, the export banana
industry tapped into the pan-tropical diversity ofMusa cultivarsinorder
to overcome Panama disease.
The Cavendish era also gave a second life to Miss Chiquita. Under
the direction of Thomas Sunderland and Executive Vice-President Jona-
than Fox (another industry outsider hired by Sunderland) United Fruit
launched new marketing initiatives in conjunction with the conversion to
boxed bananas:
Boxing has cleared the way for developments in merchandising which
have never been possible before in the banana business. We are now
ready to consider changing our business from the sale of a commodity
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