A depressing reality

On Thursday, January 17, 2008, I took a tour with 20 other Chapman University students of a Del Monte run banana plantation in Costa Rica.  The following is a summary of my initial reaction:

After visiting the banana plantation, I never want to eat another banana.  The contamination of the environment by aircraft pesticide spraying as well as by plastic insecticide bags used to cover each banana-bunch is horrifying. There are no chirping birds, no insects, no life.  The fields are littered with blue-bagged bananas and dead banana stalks.  An eerie light streams through the leafy branches and illuminates in patches the drab, mineral-less ground.

The environmental conditions, however, are nothing compared to the work conditions.  The workers, in every sense of the word, are disposable, and they know it.  If the people who pick the bananas in the fields don’t reach the daily quota of 200 bunches, they are fired.  Del Monte rotates its workers between plantations every three months so they cannot receive benefits guaranteed by the Costa Rican government for long-term employees (there is a three-month minimum).  Moreover, the workers are paid their wages with tokens, not dollars, that can only be spent at company-owned markets.  So even if they save their earnings, they cannot leave the plantation because their tokens aren’t good anywhere outside the company store.  Because the work is mentally and physically stressful, the majority of workers are young and skinny.  With age, their productivity decreases, and they are less profitable and therefore useless to the company.  There are no retirement finds or severance packages.

Daily productivity of each worker is tracked by an assigned number on a whiteboard.  The hourly count is tabulated and written down in plain sight for every supervisor to see.  There are no names, just numbers on the board to identify each individual.  Del Monte’s only concern at the plantation is profit, which stems directly from productivity.  If a worker isn’t productive, he or she is eliminated and replaced immediately.  There are no second chances.  Each box that arrives in the U.S. can be traced by number back to the individual worker who packed it, and if anything goes wrong, immediate termination is the norm.

Many workers live in tiny houses with their families.  These houses are located just outside the fields within the plantation, and they fall directly under the pesticide drop zone.  Their children play in the grass outside and their laundry hangs across the stucco window frames.  In the afternoons, they must take cover indoors to avoid being hit with the pesticides.  Not surprisingly, the pesticides do not just disappear overnight.  They would be ineffective if they did.  So the children play on poisoned lawns.  Each worker receives a phone book sized manual about skin diseases.  Cancer and illness are common. 

Worse than the physical stress on the workers, the emotional harm is tremendous.  The workers are in a mental state of desperation.  They cannot escape their depressing environment.  They are not educated in anything but bananas.  Their wages, their housing and their livelihood are entirely controlled by the foreign Del Monte corporation.  They have become dependent on their oppressor.

 What is the result of these human rights violations?  A perfectly-shaped, yellow banana for $0.19 in the grocery store year round.  At least for me, that banana will forever have a bitter taste.