Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Between1926and1928,UnitedFruitaveragedaremarkable10percentan-
nual rate of return on its investment. At the same time, an intense rivalry
developed between United Fruit and Cuyamel Fruit during the 1920s.The
former held a dominant market share, but many jobbers interviewed in
1929 believed that the latter produced the highest-quality bananas. That
sameyear, Fruit Dispatch o cials expressed concerns about being under-
sold by Cuyamel Fruit, which was reportedly dumping large quantities
of nine-handed bunches on the New Orleans market. 126 Undersuchmar-
ket conditions, there must have been little incentive to introduce a new
banana on U.S. markets. Instead, the fruit companies relied on their eco-
nomic and political power to ensure continued access to the subsidized
soil and water resources necessary to produce nine-handed Gros Michel
fruit—the U.S. market's ''Top Banana.''
shifting plantation agriculture
Unable to find a marketable, disease-resistant banana, the compa-
niesadoptedastrategyofshiftingplantationagriculture:Theyabandoned
heavilydiseasedfarms,reroutedrailroads,andcarvednewplantationsout
of forests and wetlands. This practice enabled the companies to maintain
and even increase their production levels, but as a contemporaryobserver
in La Ceiba noted, it did nothing to arrest the Panama disease epidemic:
''The disease still continues particularly in the older plantations, and only
by the planting of new areas can the banana production in this district
be maintained or increased.'' 127 Of course, shifting plantation agriculture
dependeduponthefruitcompanies'continuedaccesstosoilandwaterre-
sources.Inordertosecuresuchaccess,thecompaniesrenegotiatedand/or
violated the terms of their original railroad concessions.
Forexample, during the 1910s, Standard Fruit's railroad building had
proceeded in a southwesterly direction from La Ceiba toward the Leán
River valley as stipulated in the company's 1910 concession. In 1919, Stan-
dard Fruit renegotiated the terms of the concession in order to receive
permission to build a railroad east from La Ceiba toward the department
of Colón. 128 By the late 1920s, the company had 6,500 hectares of planta-
tions and pasture in the municipality of Jutiapa in addition to two dozen
farms in Sonaguera, Colón. Banana exports from La Ceiba reflected the
shift to new soils: after falling from 4.3 million to 1.9 million bunches be-
tween 1922 and 1926, Standard Fruit's exports rebounded to 6.5 million
bunches in 1931. 129
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