Topic: Sustainability

RESEARCH QUESTION: Is banana cultivation sustainable?

Grade: First baccalaureate

Quimester: First Quimester

Name: Sebastián Sánchez Trnka

1. Objectives

1.1.General objective :

“Recognize the need to develop ecologically sustainable projects in agriculture.”

2.2. Specific Objectives :

● “Understand the activity that the primary sector involves.”

● “Relate sustainability to real life.”

2.Field information

On August 7 I went to the province of Babahoyo to a banana farm which exports bananas to

the company “Chiquita”. In this trip I learned about the process of care for appropriate banana

production.

First of all, the banana bunch takes a few weeks. To be precise it takes 12-14 weeks

however to have a big banana bunch you must need good soil. In this case they used loamy soil

with 6.5 PH.

The banana cultivation is very complicated because of plagues like for example in the trip

we were able to see they had to throw away some banana bunches because they had some red

stains this are caused by “trips de la mancha roja”

Images of red stains:

 Another reason point of why banana cultivation is very complicated is that it could

result in being expensive because as we saw you must buy many hectares and then plant a

lot of trees and make channels and build some bridges and many other things the main
point is that for every tree you need a ribbon to identify the age of the tree and also

something called “Suncho” which helps to support the plant.Let’s not forget that every

bunch need a bag to protect the banana bunches .

The final steps when you already have the bunches are very important. It starts

using a caliper whose function is to see the thickness of the banana,the calibration must

have a minimum of 39-40.

Then a process called “Desmane” in which bunches of bananas are placed in a kind

of pool of water. This water doesn’t need to be in a specific temperature, it is just normal

water , in this step is where they select the good bunches that don't have some

irregularities.

Image:
 After that we have the final steps called “Saneo” . After that they put the

stickers.Once they do that we have the fumigation,packaging and the aspiration.So as we

can see in the banana industry it is difficult to be economically sustainable

 In the demonstration of fumigation they used water this is because the aerosol they

used is highly toxic. They explained to us that they must use a special suit, a face mask to

avoid inhalation and some glasses to protect the eyes. Nobody is able to enter at the

moment of fumigation once they are done they must wait a minimum 2 hours.

Image of fumigation :
Image of the process of putting stickers:
Process of packaging
 Even though they didn’t tell us the amount of water they use every day , it is clear

that they are doing a lot of water usage which is not ecological sustainable and also how

harmful are the pesticides used for the soil.

Also this farm it is not social sustainable because they explained that there is just

1 person per hectare.Which obviously is a lot so this in my opinion this is not sustainable

because they don’t think about the future.This could be considered labor exploitation and

the employees could make a huge protest which could make the production to fall and

stakeholders such as investors will loss the interest. Another reason they are not

sustainable is that the chemicals they use are poisonous for the employees and even the

families could be affected if they live nearby the farm.

At this moment the company is having a low season due to the bad weather. They

produce 2400 boxes when in a good season they produce 7000 boxes.

3.Research about environmental impact of the banana farming

The most fertile lands are usually occupied by banana plantations due their

nutritional needs.
 However this rich soil finishes with soil degradation. In the process of using

strong pesticides for trying to protect the banana the production tends to degrade soils

after twenty to thirty years.

Also with the passage of time due years and years of using pesticides in the soil

some residues and metals such as copper ( from the breakdown of copper sulfate used as

pesticides ).
 All this also causes soil erosion because soil compacts and the rain is not absorbed and

the runoff causes erosion.

But agrochemical residues are not the only thing we can find from banana production.

Thousands of solid wastes from the banana production and processing are a threat to the

ecosystem that are next to the plantation due the massive levels of plastic waste .Simply things

as plastic bags could cause many deaths for animals.

The banana processing uses a lot of materials that aren’t biodegradable such as plastic

bags to protect the bunches.

In the next graph you can see the residues from Costa Rican banana plantations which

aren’t different from what they use worldwide in the banana industry.
 As mentioned on the website of the organisation “Banana Link” the Banana

industry is not only famous for being the second industry that consumes more agricultural

agrochemicals than any other in the world, except cotton as mentioned on the page of

Banana Link. The banana industry is also known for deforestation and destruction of

habitats.

All this combined could cause extinction of species and even humans can be

affected.

4.Compare and contrast the research with the field information

Pesticides: The guide did tell us that they use pesticides to prevent the plagues that

affect the bunches which makes them lose money and also that the chemical they use is

harmful for the employees. They also mentioned they needed good soil.
 However they didn’t mention that the materials finished in the ground. Neither

about how pesticides cause soil degradation and soil erosion.

Solid waste

They did tell us some materials such as plastic but they didn’t show us if they recycle the materials to
prevent damage to some animals toor they didn’t even tell us what happens when they don’t need them
anymore.

Habitat transformation

As mentioned before, they did tell us that banana trees need good soil, nevertheless they didn’t mention
how they treat the ecosystem that surrounds the farm if they care for the animals that live there.

It seems they don’t care about the animals. The guide even said that they have killed some snakes.

As they said in the article of Banana Link the banana industry is known because of deforestation.In this
case they also deforest the area and they just plant the banana trees eliminating the other habitats.

5. Conclusion

Once we analyse all the field information and the research we could end up with a

conclusion that the banana industry is not sustainable. They don’t think about the future of

the animals and the health of the employees.

6.Opinion
 In my opinion in the future these pesticides should be banned until they find one

that doesn’t damage the environment. Likewise all the government should ban the farms if

they use harmful pesticides, they should supervise the amount of trash they produce and in

case they deforest a zone the government should fine them and make them plant more

trees.

Also I think that they are using just one person per hectare. The government take

an eye at it because that is a lot of work for a small salary.

10. Bibliography

The problem with bananas. (2019, January 7). Banana Link.

https://www.bananalink.org.uk/the-problem-with-bananas/

Bananas(n.d.)Usaidgems.org.

https://www.usaidgems.org/Documents/LAC_Guidelines/docs/Bananas.pdf