Global Pesticide Campaigner
March 1998, Volume 8, Number 1
By Foro Emaús

At the turn of the century, the United Fruit Company established some of the first banana plantations in Costa Rican territory. Since that time, Costa Rica's cultural and biological richness has suffered not only from uncontrolled expansion of banana plantations but also from the "normal" processes of banana production. Ecosystems have been destroyed on an ongoing basis, and the rights of workers and indigenous minorities are regularly violated.

Over time, the existence of this huge monoculture -- supported by large capital and by government agricultural policies -- has resulted in a concentration of the best lands in the hands of large banana producers and impoverishment of much of the population. It has created a food security crisis, as revealed by Costa Rica's need to import basic foods, and has destroyed thousands of acres of primary forests. High levels of pesticide use have caused widespread contamination of water throughout banana growing regions. Thousands of workers, lacking steady work due to the banana companies' hiring practices and unable to return to their places of origin, contribute to the problem by invading private farms, nature reserves, protected areas and indigenous territories.

Costa Rican bananas are exported and sold primarily in the European Union (approximately 52%) and the United States (close to 47%).1 While total sales in 1995 were almost US$694 million, they fell in 1996 to US$576 million, and to US$544 million in 1997. The largest exporters are Standard Fruit (who trade under the brand name DOLE - 30%), BANDECO (Del Monte's Costa Rican subsidiary - 22%) and COBAL (a subsidiary of Chiquita - 17%). Although the government earns some income through export and salary taxes, the great majority of earnings from banana exports remain in the hands of the large companies. In addition, as an incentive for banana production, the government allows these companies to import pesticides and other inputs tax free.2

Workers suffer

In the Caribbean Region, site of much of the banana expansion in Costa Rica, there are few employment options, and workers must take what they can find. As a result, banana companies can easily exert economic, social and psychological pressure on banana workers. Working conditions on plantations are extremely hard and are exacerbated by the lack of job security which forces many families to move regularly in search of work. Because a three month probationary period is allowed under Costa Rican law, up to 70% of the workers are employed for periods of less than 90 days. Most workers are never employed long enough to acquire vacation, health or social security benefits. This lack of regular employment leads to an increase in alcoholism, sexual abuse, drug addiction, prostitution, family break downs, violence against women, crime and vagrancy.

The banana industry uses a system based on "contractors" to carry out many jobs on the plantation. This contract system of temporary workers undermines labor legislation and has seriously weakened the unions. On many banana plantations in Costa Rica, workers have essentially lost the right to organize.3 Companies maintain a constant surveillance of workers who contact union leaders. If these workers join a union, the banana companies often harass them until they quit the union or threaten them with losing their jobs if they stay with the union. Many times, workers who attempt to organize or who fight for their rights are fired, and their names are blacklisted, making it impossible for them to find jobs at other plantations.4 In 1997 the banana workers union SITAGAH won 17 law suits against Chiquita because they had persecuted banana workers who had joined a union.

Banana production uses primarily manual labor; there are generally 190 to 210 workers on an average plantation of 250 to 300 hectares. The most common jobs are cutting and carrying fruit to the processing plant, packaging, and jobs related to the cultivation of banana plants, such as pruning, pesticide applications, fertilization, weeding and digging ditches for drainage. Workers must work quickly and often without much rest. Normally when they harvest the fruit (often two times a week), they work for up to 12 hours daily. The work requires great physical and mental effort -- it is out in the open, in a humid tropical climate, where temperatures of up to 38¡ Centigrade (100¡ Fahrenheit) alternate with torrential rains. For the past two years, the banana companies have been working to produce a higher quality product using fewer workers, which has led to a drastic reduction of plant and field workers and to a heavier work load for those who remain.

Health and safety conditions are often atrocious. Workers are frequently involved in accidents, suffering back injuries, fractures and bruises. Cuts from tools are common, as are allergic illnesses and other health problems caused by constant exposure to pesticides.

Small farmers and indigenous communities

Peasant farmers (campesinos) living near banana plantations have also suffered from expansion of the industry. In many cases, these farmers have been pressured to sell their best lands to banana companies. In addition, in order to support the banana industry, the Costa Rican government has focused its resources on development of plantations in the region, offering no support for other activities. Small farmers are left with no access to credit, or technical or marketing assistance. On the periphery of the banana plantations, small farmers are often not allowed to grow some traditional foods, such as Creole bananas, because companies fear that this might promote the spread of diseases, such as black sigatoka, that would affect their banana plants. At the same time, the campesinos' fields and water supplies are virtually destroyed by the banana companies' frequent aerial applications of pesticides. Because of their proximity to banana plantations, small farmers often cannot be certified for organic production.

In the Caribbean region, there are many indigenous communities, such as the Bribri, Cabecar, Huetar and Ngobe. Their cultural traditions and their very survival have been seriously affected by the environmental destruction caused by the banana plantations. Any threats to the regional ecosystem is a direct threat to the way of life of these native cultures. Even now, these indigenous communities are often forced to abandon their homelands and to relocate in mountainous regions.

Women and banana plantations

We wash clothes impregnated with pesticides. We would go to the banana plantations to take lunch to the workers, and we would be bathed by the chemicals being sprayed. Now we suffer blindness, cancer, allergies, abortions and our children are born deformed.

These are the words of a woman describing the situation in her community.5 As in many countries around the world, women have less access to economic resources and to land. Costa Rica is no exception, particularly in the banana regions. On the plantations, women are more poorly paid than men -- often for the same work.6 For many women, the work is occasional, depending on the amount of the harvest. Women must also combine the long hours of work on the plantations (up to 10 hours a day during harvest) with additional hours of domestic work. In these regions, women have no other employment alternatives.

Women working on banana plantations rarely receive maternity leave, or even tests to measure the amounts of pesticides in their blood. In some plantations, women are subjected to sexual abuse and harassment by fellow workers and foremen.7

Women in the region are also exposed to pesticides in their own homes -- even if they do not work on plantations. This is caused primarily by the indiscriminate aerial spraying that contaminates their homes and vegetable gardens, and contact with pesticide-contaminated spouses or companions who work on the plantations.

Poisoned landscape: The use of pesticides

Consumer demand in industrialized countries for perfect bananas has lead transnational companies to produce unblemished bananas of uniform size and color. To produce these perfect bananas, plantations depend on high levels of agrochemical use. The silence in the plantations exemplifies the deadly impacts of this type of banana production. There are no bird songs or animal calls because there is no longer any wildlife in the plantations.

Use of pesticides in banana production can reach up to 40 kilograms per hectare per year.8 In 1995, between 13,872 and 32,640 tons of nematicides were used in Costa Rican banana plantations, according to estimates of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN or in Spanish, UICN). Although the frequency and doses of pesticide application have been reduced as compared to 1990, expansion of banana production has caused an absolute increase in the amount of nematicides used.9

The impacts of improper use must also be considered, since many banana workers use pesticides without sufficient training. Although plantations have special clothing for pesticide applicators, such clothing is rarely used because of the hot weather. Official statistics reveal that two workers are poisoned by pesticides every day. In 1996, 64% of reported pesticide accidents occurred on banana plantations (633 out of a total of 989). In reality, the numbers are higher due to the fact that not all accidents are reported, and these reports do not include temporary or chronic diseases, such as asthma, allergies, cancer and reproductive problems caused by use of the poisons. The herbicide paraquat is the number one cause of poisonings, followed by carbofuran and terbufos.10 (See also box, p. 14.) In November 1997, an 18 year old banana worker died after being exposed to the herbicide terbufos (brand name Counter) on a plantation owned by the Chiriqui Land Company (Chiquita).11

One of the most serious pesticide problems in banana plantations is due to the practice of aerial fumigation with products such as benomyl (brand name Benlate), propiconazole (Tilt 250 EC), chlorothalonil (Bravo 500), and tridemorf (Calixin). In addition to contaminating nearby homes and water, aerial fumigation poisons plantation workers when spraying occurs while they are working. Foro Emaús has documented planes releasing fumigants over soccer fields while workers are playing and over a public road when a bus and a cyclist were present.

Studies show that pesticides have been found in Costa Rica's lakes, rivers and streams.12 In fact, there are many indications that contamination of the region's rivers and other water supplies has increased significantly.13 Many people do not have access to water in their homes and because there are no other water sources, they must use the pesticide-tainted rivers to bathe, to wash clothes and for drinking water. A study carried out in the Valle de la Estrella14 (near plantations owned by Standard Fruit Company and Dole) found local water supplies contaminated with chlorothalonil, a fungicide that is a probable human carcinogen and highly toxic to fish and other marine organisms.15

A new study by the Pesticide Program of the National University in Costa Rica found pesticides in the Rio Suerte Basin that drains into the Nature Conservation Area of Tortuguero. Sampling sites were selected in drainage channels near banana fields and packing plants, streams near banana plantations and the river. The most frequently found chemicals were the fungicides thiabendazole, propiconaazole and imazalil, the namaticides terbufos and cadusafos, and the insecticide chlorpyrifos.16

In February of this year, the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment and Energy publicly denounced the banana industry for contaminating the rivers and for burning pesticide-soaked plastic bags.17

Government inaction

The government of Costa Rica depends on production of export bananas not only because some members of the government and the Legislative Assembly are banana producers, but also because these exports generate jobs and foreign currency. In 1996, only tourism and textile exports earned more dollars than bananas (US$580 million).18

Since 1985, the government of Costa Rica has been engaged in a range of activities to promote banana exports. For example, the government is working to minimize production costs so that Costa Rican bananas can be more competitive in international markets. This is done through various means including eliminating import taxes on inputs, such as pesticides, needed for banana production, and cutting export taxes (from US$0.50 to US$0.20 per box in July 1995).19 The government is also partially responsible for weakening banana unions by changing labor laws and by not enforcing others, such as the Water Law,20 as well as international conventions.21 The Banana Workers Unions were forced to take the Ministry of Labor to court for violating the Constitution, because it did nothing to resolve previous suits filed by the Unions. There are 60 cases pending, some in which employees were fired because of union membership. In 1997 the Constitutional Court required the Ministry of Labor, after months of inactivity, to investigate the Unions' complaints.

Foro Emaús criticizes the government for putting profits above social development or environmental protection. We cannot talk about the benefits that the banana companies have brought to the people of Costa Rica without also considering what has happened to our land, water, air, culture and the social well being of all members of our "home." We must manage our resources with the goal of increasing their value for everyone in the long term, and we must not view contamination of our water, the poisoning of workers or social disintegration as a necessary side effect.

Contact: Foro Emaús, Apartado 106, Siquirres-Limon, Costa Rica; fax (506) 768 82 76; email foremaus@sol.racsa.co.cr.

Notes

1. In 1995 the banana companies sold 58,869,259 boxes of 18.14 kg (52.52%) to the European Union and 53,129,290 boxes (47.5%) to the U.S. at a value of US$ 693.66 million (1996: close to US$ 575.9 million for the sale of 106,000 boxes), of which the Government of Costa Rica received US$ 44,333 million from import taxes. (approximately 6.4% of the total value). CORBANA: Informe anual 1995. La Nación, 24-2-98.

2. Ley CORBANA de 1990.

3. Queja contra el gobierno de Costa Rica por la violación a la libertad sindical e interferencia de las asociaciones sindicalistas en asuntos sindicales y negociacion colectiva. Caso concreto de la Plantación Bananera de Sarapiqui, Coordinadora de los Sindicatos Bananeros, 3/95, 270p. Denuncia por la persecución sindical de SITAGH contra el gobierno de Costa Rica, Caso 1781, OIT, Coordinadora de los Sindicatos Bananeros, 7/95, 300p. Ampliación de denuncia por la persecución sindical de SITRAGAH contra el gobierno de Costa Rica, CASO 1781, OIT, Coordinadora de los Sindicatos Bananeros, 6/96, 100p.

4. The Banana Workers Unions are following up on several law suits: against the Oropel Farm for the firing of five workers for participating in union activities; against the Oropel Farm for reduction in salaries of union members; against the Guapinol Banana Plantation for firing a pregnant female worker (and union member); against the Banana Farm Las Gacelas for not paying the union quota of union workers; against the Banana Company Deba for violation of the protection of union statutes; and against the Farm El Roble for not granting an order of medical attention. These suits are sometimes successful, such as the case against the Farm Agroindustrial Pacuare, where 15 workers were forced to quit the union (January 1995, Constitutional Court, No. 0521-95).

5. La Prensa Libre, 27-6-97.

6. La III Reunion de Trabajo de los Sindicatos Bananeros de America Latina, Coordinadora de los Sindicatos Bananeros, 8/96.

7. Doris Calvo, SITRAP, "Ahi dejamos la vida" Sin Barreras, Conao 4, 8/9 1996.

8. La Nación, 24-2-97.

9. Foro Emaús calculations based on UICN data.

10. Reporte Oficial sobre intoxicaciones con Plaguicidas 1996, Ministerio de Salud, 1997.

11. La Nación, 15-11-97.

12. Claim against the Standard Fruit Company, Estrella Valley, Limon, 1991. Association for the protection of Hydrographic River Basins of Costa Rica, and for Clean Water, Costa Rica (International Water Tribunal, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1992).

13. UICN, p. 77.

14. "Ambiente - Legalidad o violación en Costa Rica," Fundación Guilombe, 1993, p. 149-189.

15. Extoxnet, Chlorothalonil, revised 5/94.

16. Castillo, L.E., C. Ruppert, E. Solis, February 1998. "Pesticides in the water bodies influenced by banana production," PPUNA.

17. La Prensa Libre, February 25, 1998

18. The results for 1996 (1995) in US$: textiles 695 (697) million; tourism 653 (633) million; bananas 578 (635) million. Exportaciones de Costa Rica 1996, Procomer.

19. La Nación, August 22, 1995.

20. Banana plantations have cut trees during plantation expansions in an illegal, uncontrolled manner. The government is not holding the companies responsible for planting new trees on the banks of the rivers.

21. For several years, the Government of Costa Rica has been subject to different actions before the International Labor Organization. "Libertad sindical y condiciones de trabajo en la agricultura del banano," estudio 1997, p. 2.