Banana production in Ecuador

[2] However, the industry did not experience a boom until 1948, when the government of President Galo Plaza began issuing agricultural credits, tariffs, building ports and a highway on the coast, and making efforts towards pest control.

[5] As of 1960, bananas exported from Ecuador accounted for 25 percent of the world's production, out-producing all of the Central American countries.

During the 1960s agrarian reform caused fragmentation of land holdings and multinational companies closed down due to labour trouble.

Some 147,909 hectares were dedicated to production, 99 percent of which were in the three provinces of Oro, Guayas, and Los Ríos in the lowlands of the Pacific coast, with a tropical climate and rich soil conditions.

A study conducted three years earlier stated that the country's banana worker's average monthly wage was US$56.

[7] In 2012, Ecuador reported losses of $600 million due to the Black sigatoka fungus, with 40% (85,000 hectares) of the country's banana plantations affected by it.

World consumption standards, trade and environmental regulations, sanctions applied by Ecuador's principal buyers, and the opinions of civil society also have a major bearing on its production.

[3] The cultivation process involves removal of weeds, applying insecticides, covering the fruits with plastics to prevent loss due to close contact, also enclosing the bananas with plastic bags filled with insecticide, protecting plant stocks by covering them with strips of plastic coated with insecticide, removal of yellow and dead leaves, and providing support by propping up the plants with wooden stakes.

[10] A related fruit, plantains or plátanos (pronounced "PLAH-ta-nohs"), are also grown extensively in Ecuador, and are usually cooked for eating, both when green and at various stages of ripening.

[11][12] Plantains are eaten in deep fried form or baked or boiled and used in a wide variety of dishes.

While aerial spraying is one aspect of the problem manual spraying has much greater impact in the field as the task is sublet to contractors whose employees performing the task are not employed by the plantation and they use highly toxic products such as Mocap (Ethoprophos), and they usually work without any protective cover.

[14] A framework known as the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme has been introduced to address the above issues but its effectiveness has been seriously questioned.

Hence, an alternative suggestion made by FAO to address the issues of environmental effects is to evolve a "Health, Safety & Environment Programme" for the whole banana industry, based on trade union proposals, building common priorities and strategies with other stakeholders and implementing concerted strategies to make progressive changes to improve the seriously deteriorated situation facing workers.