Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tremelydiculttomakepreciselybecauseecologicalconditionsandculti-
vationpracticestendtovarygreatlyandareseldomrecordedinthecensus
data and probate records frequently consulted by historians.
69
In the second half of the twentieth century, small- and large-scale
farmers turned increasingly to synthetic fertilizers to boost yields. Al-
though ''Green Revolution'' technologies are popularly associated with
basic grain production, plant breeding and synthetic fertilizers came to
play a dominant role in all of the export sectors examined here dur-
ing the 1950s and 1960s. Although banana plant breeders failed to de-
velop marketable plants with resistance to plant pathogens, they suc-
ceededinsignificantlyreducingthephysicalsizeofCavendishplants.This
enabled unprecedented planting densities, which, along with large in-
puts of fertilizers and fewer wind-related losses, resulted in record-setting
yields. Dwarf varieties of arabica coffee began to gain favor among Latin
American growers in the 1960s; by the 1980s, they dominated production
in Costa Rica, where coffee growers further boosted yields by applying
government-subsidized fertilizers and reducing shade trees.
70
The use of fertilizers and high-yielding plant varieties lowered unit
production costs, but sharply rising yields coincided with a period of
slow-growing or even declining rates of per capita consumption of ba-
nanas, coffee, and sugar in the United States. Cultivators possessing su-
cient capital often responded to declining commodity prices by trying to
''rationalize'' production through increasing yields, further exacerbating
problemsofoverproduction.Insomeplaces,theuseofsyntheticfertilizers
strengthened the dominant position of comparatively well off farmers.
71
The singular focus on boosting yields represents an overlooked (orat best
narrowly interpreted) agroecological context in which late-twentieth-
century conflicts over access to markets—including the so-called banana
wars between the United States and the European Union, and the latest
coffeepricecrisis—havetakenplace.Finally,if intensificationreducedthe
amount of land dedicated to export crop production, it heightened rates
of agrochemical use (particularly herbicides) and created new occupa-
tionalhealthhazardsforfarmworkersandpeoplelivingincloseproximity
to the fields.
72
Fertilizers and pesticides are leading sources of water pol-
lution in the world's agricultural regions. Intensification is often equated
with ''modernization,'' but there is mounting evidence that production
processesorientedtowardboostingyieldsextractenormousenvironmen-
tal, economic, and social costs.
73
The dynamics of mass production and mass consumption, then, ex-
erted pressures that drastically restricted the varietal diversity of cash
