Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
inhabitants. In these tales of modernization, the export banana symbol-
ized the transformation of tropical Nature into productive agricultural
spaces via the guiding hand of U.S. capital and technology.
105
People in the United States inscribed the banana with a wide range
of meanings, but both popularand highbrowappropriations often repro-
ducedethnocentricviewsoftropicalplacesandtheirinhabitants.Thecon-
temptuous view of banana eating expressed by writers such as Wharton
and Stevens, as well as popular associations of bananas with humor and
sexuality, shared historical roots in earlier visions of the tropics as dark,
dangerouslyfecund,andprofoundlydifferentfromAngloAmerica.Atthe
same time, some writers also linked the export banana trade to progress
by creating images of healthy, hardworking tropical inhabitants enjoying
the civilizing benefits of international trade and applied scientific knowl-
edge. These ''developmentalist'' discourses, combined with a burgeoning
consumer culture and enduring ideas about the tropics as unhealthy left
little room for public discussions about environmental degradation be-
yond the isolated voices of naturalists such as Paul Standley and James
Peters who expressed considerable ambivalence about the changes that
they witnessed on the North Coast.
The fruit companies did not make money trading in metaphors, nor
were most consumers drawn to bananas primarily for their symbolic
value. Bananas were first and foremost a food that by the early twenti-
eth century had ceased to be a novelty for most U.S. consumers. In 1910
over 40 million bunches of bananas entered the nation's ports; four years
later,importsnearedthe50-million-bunchmarkandpercapitaconsump-
tion was around 22 pounds.
106
United Fruit loaned most of its shipping
fleet to the U.S. government and its allies during World War I, leading
to a downturn in banana imports between 1914 and 1918. Consumption
ratesreboundedinthe1920swhenunprecedentedquantitiesof Honduran
bananas entered the United States.
107
Although the dollar value of U.S.
banana imports paled in comparison to that of coffee, the fruit had un-
questionably become one of the most important agricultural commodi-
ties in the Americas, constituting 3.3 percent of total U.S. imports and
more than 50 percent of U.S. imports from Central America in 1929.
108
Thatsameyear,amarketingsurveyconductedforUnitedFruitfoundthat
more than one-half of the 8,500 households surveyed purchased bananas
''frequently,''andthepercentagewasevenhigherforhouseholdswithchil-
dren. Only 9 percent of those interviewed stated that they ''never'' bought
bananas.
109
