Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
table 3.2.
Source of Aguan Valley Company Banana Exports, -
Total Fruit Exported
Fruit Purchased
In millions of
In millions of
Percentage of
Year
bunches
bunches
total exports
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Source: Aguan Valley Company, ''Detail of Fruit Shipments for Years to
Inclusive,'' Mar. , Standard Fruit and Steamship Company Papers, Box ,
Folder .
highest concentrations of banana growers—Puerto Cortés, Omoa, and El
Paraíso—98 of the 150 growers recorded grew one or more crops in addi-
tiontobananas.Consequently,theterm''bananagrower''mustbeapplied
with some qualifications, since many farmers produced multiple crops.
The tendency to grow at least two or three market crops in addition to
bananas also prevailed in the department of Colón.
11
On the one hand, the evidence presented here reflects the extent to
which the organization of production on the North Coast had changed:
small-scale growers, who prior to 1910 accounted for a majority of ba-
nanas exported from Honduran ports, supplied no more than 30 per-
cent of the fruit exported during the 1930s. On the other hand, the fact
that hundreds of non-company growers sold some 4.7 million bunches as
late as 1934 suggests a need to revise historical narratives that emphasize
the rupture between the pre- and post-United Fruit eras in Honduras.
12
Geographicalcentersof late-nineteenth-centuryexportproductioninthe
