Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
departments of Cortés and Atlántida remained important sites of non-
company banana farms well into the twentieth century: in 1914, the two
departments accounted for 90 percent of the 955 banana farms operat-
ing on the North Coast. Also, the noteworthydifference in the percentage
of purchased fruit between United Fruit's two Honduran subsidiaries is
consistent with the distinct nineteenth-century histories of the Sula and
Aguán valleys in which the companies operated and serves as a reminder
that regional contexts mattered in shaping the fruit companies' produc-
tion practices.
But if small-scale banana producers persisted on the North Coast in
the twentieth century, so too did tensions between farmers and shippers.
The fruit companies' control over both railroads and steamships placed
growers in a precarious position that was further undermined following
United Fruit's purchase of Cuyamel Fruit in 1929, a merger that squelched
whatever competition existed in the Sula valley, where most of the non-
companygrowerswerefound.InFebruary1931,anarticleinaNorthCoast
newspaper accused Tela Railroad Company fruit inspectors of rejecting
''almost all'' of the fruit cut by ''national growers.'' 13 Oneyear later, an edi-
torialinadifferentregionalnewspaperdetailedhowrejectedfruitreduced
the earnings of Luis Caballero, a Sula valley grower who cultivated ap-
proximately 35 hectares of bananas. 14 Caballero apparently did not suffer
many rejections during the years 1925 and 1929, when he sold fruit worth
US$4,667 and US$4,978, respectively. However, overa nine month period
in 1930, Caballero had 807 bunches rejected; that same year, the company
lowered the prices that it paid growers for all bunch sizes. 15 In just eight
months of 1931, the company refused to buy 2,285 bunches. The rising
numberof rejections coincided with a dramatic decrease in the numberof
six-handed bunches that Caballero sold to the company. In 1925, the Tela
Railroad Company bought nearly 2,400 sixes (more than 18 percent of
the bunches purchased from Caballero). In 1929, the company purchased
only 379 sixes; two years later, it all but stopped purchasing six-handed
bunches. The case of Luís Caballero illustrates the connection between
market demand and shifting quality standards: fruit inspectors tended to
be less discriminating about banana quality in ''boom'' years such as 1925
than they were during the ''bust'' years of the early 1930s.
Fruit rejections were at the center of a conflict between a large num-
berofSulavalleybananagrowersandtheTelaRailroadCompanyoverthe
terms of the 1931 purchase contract. 16 The first three clauses of the con-
tract defined quality standards in terms of variety, peel condition, and
bunch size. Harvested fruit had to be ''fresh, clean, unblemished'' Gros
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