Bananas were originally found in South East Asia, mainly in India.
They were brought west by Arab conquerors in 327 B.C. and moved from
Asia Minor to Africa and finally carried to the New World by the first
explorers and missionaries to the Caribbean. The mass production of
bananas started in 1834 and really started exploding in the late 1880’s.1
Before the 1870’s most of the land that bananas were
grown on in the Caribbean had been previously used to grow sugar. After
this time low marsh land started to be drained along with forests that
were cleared in Central America for banana monocrops (which is growing
one crop to increase productivity).2
In the early years of Central American banana trade
the head of United Fruit had a marriage for political gain to the
daughter of the Costa Rican President. This allowed his
fruit company
United Fruit to start acquiring the other fruit companies in the
country. In the 1950’s when freely elected government of Guatemala
threatened United Fruits control, United Fruit convinced the CIA that
an overthrow was in order. The CIA placed a right-wing dictator loyal
to United Fruit in power securing United Fruit’s position in Guatemala.3
The first notable disease to strike bananas was a
mold called Fusarium, it struck the roots of the Gros Michel which is a
variety of bananas. Fusarium was also known as Panama Disease which was
carried in the soil. In the 1920’s a second disease struck banana crops
called Sigatosa, which is an airborne fungus. In the mind 1920’s United
Fruit pathologists found that they could spray the plants with a
“Bordeaux mixture” which is a pesticide, and it helped control the
Sigatosa. The strategy to control Fusarium was to move banana
plantations every ten years or so. Then researchers developed a banana
that was immune to Fusarium, the Giant Cavendish, which is the variety
that has come to dominate modern worldwide consumption, appeared in the
1950’s.
According to the UNCTAD4 fair trade and organic
banana production has been increasing. In 2003 the market for organic
bananas hit 152,000 tons and fair trade bananas hit 46,000 tons.(5)(6)