« A Bit of Buddhism | Main | Missing Military Record - One More Take »
Beneath the Gleaming Yellow Skin
No it’s not the Yellow Peril. It’s the Banana - the world’s most popular fruit with an annual production of 86 million tonnes. It was once dominated by three producers: Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, who between them control approximately 60 per cent of the world market. Although excessive production in the 90s led to a collapse of price paid to the producers, we continued to pay an artifical high price for our consumption of this majestic fruit - thanks to our demand for cosmetic ‘quality’. Our insistence upon large, blemish-free bananas, which has nothing to do with how tasty the banana is has but one sad consequence:
A 1999 study by the National University of Costa Rica found that women working in packing plants for the country’s banana industry suffer double the average rate of leukaemia and birth defects. And 20 per cent of male banana workers in the country have been left sterile. Could it possibly have something to do with the amount of pesticides they unwittingly consume during the course of their work? eight times the global average at a staggering 4kg per person per year?
For the unblemished skins which symbolize health and energy, we need an even greater reliance on pesticide. Let’s take a look at the truth about the banana trade from this perspective.
Posted on August 30, 2004 11:05 AM
Categories: The Bad
Trackback
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.hollymolly.net/mt/mt-tb.cgi/436
Comments
Post a comment