Our Visit To Chiquita

Saturday morning we set off to Chiquita, one of Costa Rica’s largest banana plantations. On the way there I was excited, until Glenn mentioned how many chemicals Chiquita releases into their fields and their employees lungs. After that lecture, it was hard to enjoy the plantation.
We first watched a video on how Chiquita is being more environmentally friendly. The video mentioned that in order to help the wildlife around the plantation they are planting trees and such to create a rainforest corridor. The rainforest corridor is meant to connect the wildlife from nearby primary rainforests. Banana plantations need a lot of land to grow the bananas. Chiquita is very proud of their rainforest corridors they are creating. Chiquita is calling their recent social and environmental changes, The Nature and Community Project.
This project involves not only the growth of rainforest corridors, but social changes such as an employee wage increase, better employee working conditions regarding health issues and insurance coverage, and elimination of child labor. A great example of employee having more opportunity was The Chiquita Banana Show we experienced. This show was put on by Chiquita workers, a small business they created. The show educated us on the overall plantation worked, including; employee apparel, the history of bananas and where they originally came from, the banana plant, and how the bananas are grown.
I learned that employees have to wear required apparel while on the plantation. The banana plant originally came from Asia, which is why Chiquita and other banana plantations have to spry so many pesticides on their plants. Bananas are not meant to be grown on Costa Rica’s land. Costa Rica has too many insects and fungus in the soil that doesn’t mix well with banana plants. Pesticides are used to kill the insects and funguses that arise.
I also learned about the banana plant (it’s a plant, not a tree). The plant is like a family, there is a grandfather, a mom, and a son. Each family member is a part of the plant. The grandfather is the strongest most reliable part of the plant, the main part. The mother is the part of the plant that makes the son. The son is where the bananas are grown from. The mom actually creates many sons, but only the strongest survives. The others are cut off. After the first two weeks of growth, the bananas are covered with a plastic bag to protect them from insects. The bananas take about nine months to fully grow. The whole plant can live up to over 25 years. The bananas are then cut off and transported on a cable to the cleansing and packaging part of the plantation. The average load on the cable is about 20-25 bananas.
Chiquita was fun after I gave them a break. I realize it’s still not right that they use all those pesticides, but compared to other banana plantations Chiquita has done an amazing job changing their old habits. I can’t imagine what the employees of the other banana plantations conditions are.