Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
of men who held important positions in commerce and local politics. He
was neither the first nor the last shipping agent on the North Coast to
find himself at the center of a controversy; conflicts between growers and
shippers often erupted over fruit prices, grades, and rejections.
Theprocessoftransportingbananastomarketsbeganwhenashipper
issued an aviso, or notice, to fruit growers. For example, an aviso distrib-
uted on June 13, 1881, announced (in English and Spanish) that a train
picking up fruit for the schoonerEttaE.Sylvester would depart San Pedro
Sulafourdayslater.
47
Thenoticeinstructedgrowerstoputtheirfruitalong
the railway by middayonThursday. Payments for the fruit would be made
once it had been received by a shipping agent in Puerto Cortés. Ship-
ping agents were typically responsible forcounting and grading fruit.The
location of banana sales often was the site of power struggles that rou-
tinelytookplacebetweengrowersandshippers.Notsurprisingly,growers
often objected when buyers rejected fruit judged to be bruised, overripe,
or sunburned.
48
Determiningfruitqualitywasahighlysubjectiveprac-
tice linked to fluctuations in market demand; fruit accepted in a period
of high demand might be rejected during a seasonal lull in U.S. markets.
Shippers often held the upper hand when negotiating fruit purchases be-
causegrowerspossessedanarrowtimeframeinwhichtheycouldselltheir
fruit before it became too ripe.
In an 1889 letter published in LaGaceta, Jesús Quirós remarked that
the banana trade, which ''should have produced immense advantages'' for
the residents of Tela, was suffering due to the deceitful ways of steamer
captains who often took advantage of grower vulnerability.
49
Municipal
acts from Tela indicate that inconsistent steamship service hindered the
local banana trade in the early 1890s.
50
In 1893 dozens of residents of Tela
appealed to Honduran president General Leiva ''to lend not only moral
but material support'' to resolve the ''terrible crisis'' affecting the port.
51
Specific requests included assistance with normalizing steamship sched-
ules and ensuring the sale of fruit in order to eliminate ''the abuses to
which we are subject by the current steamship lines.'' The teleños urged
the government to exercise direct accounting of fruit sales.
In October of that same year, banana growers saw many of their re-
queststransformedintolaw.Inthefirstpieceofnationallegislationpassed
regulating the banana industry, Decree 30 established a system of fruit in-
spection and taxation.
52
The law restricted fruit sales to designated points
on the shoreline; any person caught selling fruit at nondesignated spots
would face stiff fines. The decree also called for government fruit inspec-
tors charged with recording each fruit sale. Fruit inspector salaries were to
