Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
transformations in both Central America and the United States. Banana
workers in Honduras helped to bring about some of these changes by
forming labor unions and pressing for land reform. But organized labor
was not the only force that compelled the fruit companies to alter their
production processes; the inexorable spread of Panama disease drove up
production costs and rates of soil abandonment at a time when the fruit
companies' extensive landholdings in the Caribbean and Latin America
wereunderseverepublicscrutinyandthreatsofexpropriation.Theindus-
try's solution to the problem—boxed Cavendish bananas—created unex-
pectedopportunitiesforwomenaswagelaborersinpackingplants.Ironi-
cally, the nostalgic return of Miss Chiquita coincided with changing roles
for women in the tropics.
