Review by Sean Most of us, when we eat banana’s, we don’t think much about it, it’s history, or even as crazy as it sounds, it’s impact on the Western Hemisphere. John Soluri gives an in depth lesson on how the banana itself created an economy between Central America and the U.S. After reading this book you will look at the banana more closely as you bite into it. Soluri’s thesis for this book is “the need for people to think and act in ways that acknowledge the dynamic relationships between production and consumption, between people and nonhuman forms of life, and between cultures and economies” (Soluri ix). My interpretation of Soluri’s message is he wants us to realize the impact economies have on our lives and the relationships between them and our cultures. Soluri’s attempt to teach us the history of the banana was very beneficial in spreading his message. He starts off in the 1870’s where schooners from U.S. ports begin showing up to purchase bananas and coconuts. The Honduran national government welcomed the guests as they signified wealth in an export-oriented economy. “According to William Burchard, a 4-hectare banana farm (3000 plants) cost about $250 in 1880 and provided ‘under favorable circumstances’ $1500 in revenue the first year and anywhere from $3000 to $5000 in subsequent years” (Soluri 20). In the late nineteenth century, the Bay Islands of Honduras experienced a banana boom that was very short lived. What comes up next is a lesson that can contribute to the field of environmental history. Less than 20 years after the boom their export banana production had crashed due to “decades of cultivating the same crop in a relatively small area depleted soil nutrients and in turn lowered fruit weights, prompting shippers to purchase fruit from mainland growers whose young plantations yielded heavier fruit” (Soluri 26). This extraordinary event contributes to environmental history as we see time and time again what happens when such a vital element, such as soil, is abused. Though at this point the banana economy only pertains to a small area it grows substantially. I will fast-forward to the time of the Sigatoka epidemic to describe how Soluri paints a much larger picture of the banana economy. Before the epidemic, in 1910, bananas constituted 3.3% of the U.S. imports as over 40 million bunches of bananas entered the nation’s ports; four years later, imports neared the 50 million bunch mark (Soluri 62). By the time the epidemic hit in 1935, Tela Railroad company exported over 12 million bunches with 30% of them purchased (Soluri 78). In late October 1935, a powerful storm struck the Sula valley destroying crops, drowning livestock, washing out villages, labor camps, and bridges (Soluri 104). The Tela Railroad Company started seeing isolated events of Sigatoka spreading through their banana crops. Sigatoka is a leaf spot disease which causes dark spots to appear on the leaves of bananas and essentially hindering their growth. By December of 1935 more than 4400 hectares (approximately 3 million plants) of plantations had some degree of infection; this number doubled to 8900 hectares (approximately 6-7 million), and fruit yields were in decline on some 1340 hectares (Soluri 105). Sigatoka took a hard toll on non-company growers in the region. Of the more than 1000 hectares of bananas (750000 bunches) in the Chamelecon district not one was Sigatoka free, and from 1935-1937 non company exports from the Sula valley fell from 3.6 to 1.7 million bunches (Soluri 105-6). Banana Cultures has a message that can be shared by everyone: even something as small as bananas can from an international economic relationship between two countries. The numerous statistics of the export of bananas to the U.S. from Central America, the rise of fruit companies such as United Fruit and Standard Fruit, and the consequence of different diseases of banana plants convince me that there is so much to an economy involving culture, exporting/importing, and other factors. This book made me realize it is important to be in tuned to the relationships between economies and culture, human and non-human forms of life. | Review by Christine Many of us eat bananas. But do any of us really know where these bananas come from? For most people, the answer is no. In Banana Cultures, John Soluri brings the banana and its importance to the forefront. In his book, he focuses on the relationship between banana production (mainly the Gros Michel variety) in Honduras, especially the North Coast between the late 1800s to mid 1900s, and the U.S. consumption of them. His central argument is that U.S. consumption of bananas causes major social, political, and environmental change in Honduras. In the 10 years it took to complete Banana Cultures, Soluri spent time researching in New York, the North Coast, the Library of Congress, Harvard University, and many other places. He has ample evidence and research to back up his claims, including: narratives, images, books, articles, field surveys, monthly yield catalogs, signed petitions, maps, case studies, newspapers, census data, and interviews. Soluri makes very strong arguments in his book. One main argument is that the creation of banana plantations by large fruit companies is destructive to the land. Thousands of acres of forests are cut down to make space for farms and railroad tracks, years of growing in the same fields depletes soil, swamps are drained (changing the hydrological cycles), agrochemicals are introduced, and biological diversity is reduced (which facilities the spread of plant diseases). There is no denying Soluri’s claim that the environment is effected. He makes sure to connect the dots between human actions and environmental detriment. A second argument he makes is that society itself is affected. With the ever increasing U.S. demand for bananas, more workers are needed on plantations. People are immigrating to banana farms, who are sometimes met by local resistance. Tensions form between shippers and growers. Large companies are taking land and locals are left landless. There are strikes and protests of wages and working conditions. Unions to protect small growers are created. Cities are also being modernized. I also agree with this argument. Soluri proves that it is unlikely that these changes would have happened without the creation of banana plantation and the infrastructure that went along with them. His third argument is that politics themselves are involved and transformed the banana trade. Laws are created to give people incentives to grow bananas. Government officials must create programs to deal with the spread of banana diseases. Presidents are making deals with large scale fruit companies in order to make money. Banana shippers themselves are found trying to smuggle Soluri proves this argument in a very effective way because he actually states laws made directly because of the banana trade, and shows how Presidents and politicians were connected to it. Even though I agree with his thesis, I think Soluri does a terrible job presenting his argument. I had to read the book and reorganize all of the information in order to figure out his main points. He doesn’t really follow any kind of chronological order, even within the chapters themselves. The information, although very good, is also very haphazard. He constantly switches back and forth between the environment, politics, and society within chapters. I thought this book would have been much easier to understand and more powerful if it would have been organized into those three major themes he expresses in his thesis. Regardless of organization, this book is very powerful. Although not the easiest read, I believe this book was written for the general public. This book is important to environmental history because it sheds light on the impacts of being involved in consumerism, not only to the landscape but to social and political institutions. It gets people thinking about where the products they use come from and the impacts of consuming those products can create. |
Like most of us I eat bananas every day, whether it is with my cereal in the morning or on a peanut butter and bananas sandwich. Most of us I would imagine have no idea where the bananas we consume come from or what had to happen in order for them to get to our local grocery store.
John Soluri’s book Banana Cultures explores the rise of banana consumption in the United States, and the effect it would have on the environment of the North Coast of Honduras from 1870-1975. He chose to focus on this part of Honduras as it is estimated that between 1870-1950 Honduras exported the most bananas worldwide. He follows the banana from farm to marketplace to explore the dynamic relationship between mass consumption and mass production which led to many environmental and social changes along Honduras’s North Coast. To do so he uses a wide variety of sources like manuscripts, census data from Honduras, correspondence between the Honduran and United States government, and many more sources. He uses concepts from many different fields of study like biology, geography, social, environmental and cultural history, as well as the emerging field of agroecology.
He starts by describing the environment and ecology of the North Coast of Honduras before bananas really became a widely consumed commodity. He does this so the reader can understand what the environment there was like before bananas became a widely consumed commodity. He will later discuss the appearance of various diseases that would affect banana crops in Central America and what fruit companies would try to do to exterminate these diseases. He discusses the many things that the fruit companies tried to save their banana crops and what affect these proposed solutions would have on the environment and the people. He also examines the lives of the people working the plantations in Honduras and their struggles. He concludes the book by putting everything in perspective and compares the commodification of bananas to that of other products from the Caribbean like sugar and coffee.
The main theme of the book is that in Honduras bananas were a huge source of income, that is until big business got involved in the cultivation of bananas. As a result much of the land in Honduras was altered or destroyed in an effort to increase banana production. This all occurred though due to the rising consumption of bananas in the United States. He explains that if we take his approach to studying these things we can envision a less gloomy and more complex view of the future based on the idea of redesigning both agriculture and commodity markets.
I found the book overall to be very interesting and I think Soluri does a great job of making his argument, as he uses many different types of sources. I found it very engaging and think people from any kind of background could enjoy reading this book. I found it very interesting to discover the impact of commodification of bananas in the United States and the effect that this would have on the Honduran people and the environment in this part of the world. I am also hopeful like Soluri that we are beginning to change our views on the relationship between food consumption and sustainable development.