Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
partment reported that it had ''conclusive evidence'' that house fly popu-
lations acquired resistance to DDT. They urged rotating the use of vari-
ous insecticides in order to slow the build-up of resistance: ''It is likely
that a new population of resistant flies will develop, but probably not to
bothersome proportions before six months to one year.''
6
This curiously
shortsighted strategy for dealing with the problem of pesticide resistance
would dominate fruit company practices for the remainder of the twenti-
eth century.
By the early 1970s virtually every phase of production—from plant
propagationtoboxingoperations—involvedchemicalinputs.Dailyplan-
tation work increasingly revolved around disease and pest control.Work-
ers sanitized banana rhizomes before planting them, disinfected their
pruning tools, walked the fields on the lookout fordisease symptoms, and
applied fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and nematicides.
The prominent role played by agrochemicals following World War II was
captured by both the ocial and unocial names given to the research
complexopenedinLaLimabyUnitedFruitin1953.Formallychristened
the ''Vining C. Dunlap Laboratories'' in honor of the former research di-
rector who developed the Bordeaux spray system, the labs were popularly
referred to as ''La Química.''
7
The banana industry's rising use of agro-
chemicals can be attributed to several factors. Following World War II,
there was a dramatic increase in the number of pesticides that chemical
companies marketed to agribusinesses and farmers.
8
Also, the conversion
toboxedCavendishbananasusheredinaneraof heightenedqualitystan-
dards that could only be met through regular applications of fertilizers,
insecticides, and nematicides. Finally, following the 1954 strike, the fruit
companies in Honduras went to great lengths to cut payroll costs; new
fungicides and herbicides enabled the companies to control Sigatoka and
weeds with only a fraction of the labor inputs once required.
The impact of the 1954 strike on the fruit companies is visible in the
unpublished annual reports of United Fruit's Department of Tropical Re-
search. During the 1940s and early 1950s, company researchers pursued
a wide range of projects, prompted in part by the exigencies of World
War II. A ''New Crops Program'' inaugurated in 1942 focused on culti-
vating ''emergency crops'' such as abacá (Musa textilis), rubber, and oil-
bearing plants. In 1950, plantings of African oil palm covered more than
1,300 hectares of former banana lands. Company workers also reforested
more than 4,000 hectares of land.
9
All told, by 1951 United Fruit's non-
banana crops covered a remarkable 12,150 hectares of land in Honduras.
10
That same year, non-banana subject matter filled one half of the research
