Bowdoin students love bananas. In fact, bananas are the most consumed fruit on our campus. At brunch one morning, a friend and I tried to time how long it would take before the banana basket needed to be refilled. After about an hour and a half, it was practically empty. We grab them as an accompaniment to peanut butter or cereal, take one (or two or three) to go and sometimes even leave them on our tray untouched. Bananas are delicious and full of potassium, so it’s no wonder why they’re a popular fruit. However, the banana industry has a long and bloody history of environmental degradation and violence that continues to this day.
Last spring, Bowdoin Advocates for Human Rights (BAHR, formerly Bowdoin’s Amnesty International chapter) began a campaign to reduce Bowdoin’s consumption of bananas. Chiquita Brands International has propagated violence and political turmoil in Latin America since its genesis as United Fruit Company in 1899. In the 1928 Banana Massacre in Colombia, over a 1,000 plantation workers protesting for better working conditions were killed by the Colombian military in conjunction with United Fruit. 1954 saw United Fruit help the CIA orchestrate a coup of the Guatemalan government. Then, a 2002 report by Human Rights Watch detailed hazardous working conditions for children as young as eight and employed by Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte. These historic events represent a sample of violence characteristic of the industry.
The legacy continues to this day. In 2007, Chiquita admitted in a U.S court that they paid over $1.7 million to the AUC, a designated terrorist group by the U.S. State Department. During this time, the AUC was blamed for 22 massacres in the region where Chiquita was operating, and the deaths of hundreds of union workers. 4,000 Colombian civilians filed a suit against Chiquita for its part in their relatives’ deaths, and the suit was settled in a U.S. court away from the public eye. These pay-offs are not limited to just Chiquita: Dole and Del Monte have also been implicated.
Environmental degradation is another side effect of the banana industry. Banana plantations are responsible for soil erosion, deforestation and contamination of water resources through the intensive usage of pesticides. In addition, the variety of banana that we eat, the Cavendish, is under threat of extinction due to a disease that is a result of unsustainable monocropping. Although Chiquita no longer operates in Colombia, the banana industry continues to commit human rights abuses in countries including Ecuador and the Philippines.
Last fall, I studied abroad in Bogotá, Colombia. Until recently, Colombia had the second largest number of internally displaced peoples in the world: five million and growing. As I walked to my university or got off the bus, I often saw whole families with signs stating “desplazados,” or “displaced.” People would walk by them without a second glance. I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the displaced people I was seeing were coming from Urabá, the region where Chiquita used to operate and where innocent civilians are still murdered and kidnapped daily.
Consumer choices have very real consequences that we often do not realize or cannot see. Bowdoin Advocates for Human Rights is working alongside Bowdoin Dining to lower campus banana consumption and shift to Fair Trade certified bananas in our dining halls and campus stores. Fair Trade bananas have higher standards for labor conditions and environmental sustainability, but they are not the ultimate solution. Our current banana consumption is not sustainable, and there are not enough Fair Trade bananas to satisfy America's demand. For this reason, BAHR proposes that as a student body we consider permanently decreasing our consumption.
We are lucky to attend a school that thinks critically and aligns its choices with its values. We have an amazing Dining Service that does their best to bring locally sourced and regional foods to our plates. Many of our apples are from Maine, and even all the oatmeal is now local. As part of this effort, the C-Store and the Café are selling Fair Trade bananas for the first time.
Charlotte Dillon is member of the class of 2016.