GLOBALIZATION TECHNOLOGY & SOCIAL CHANGE
Going Bananas
When walking into your nearest supermarkets produce section its common place to see fruits from all over the world and think nothing of it. Fruits that a 100 years ago would spoil long before it reached the Americas, we eat on a regular basis. Truly in our day an age technology allows a level of globalization that nothing its truly out of reach, but it wasn't always like this if we take the banana as an example,a berry(yes a berry) originally grown in southeast Asia now grown in Latin America and eaten all the world. How did the globalization of this fruit affect people, politics and regions in where they grow.
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early cultivation and spread
The genus Musa acuminata from which modern bananas hail from was first cultivated and grown by farmers starting around 5000 BCE around southeast Asia and Papua new Guinea and also the area near whats now Cameroon in central Africa. While it is contested how the banana first traveled from Asia to Africa the effect bananas had on the local economy is not. it was more plentiful "The yield of bananas exceeds that of yams by a factor of ten...1". it required less maintenance being using less of the free forest and being able to survive dry season very well and creating an environment less hospitable to malaria. Jumping a few centuries through trade bananas have become widely traded in Europe and the middle east even being mentioned in a hadith ( secondary text based sayings by the prophet Muhammad)" being praised for its health benefits."And the companions of the right hand; how happy are the companions of the right hand! Amid thorn less lote-trees, and banana-trees (with fruits), one above another. And extended shade, and water flowing constantly, and abundant fruit 2”. Now jumping to the 15th century and the "discovery" of the new world bananas where introduced to the Americas by Spanish and Portuguese sailors finally globalizing the banana.
banana republics
One reason why i chose to focus on the banana is its interesting place in the history of different groups around the world. while the effect of bananas were overwhelming positive for the natives of central Africa the same can't be said for the country of Honduras. In the turn of the 20th century refrigerated train cars made it possible to ship bananas grown in central america to the united states. Three companies took advantage of this cuyamel, united and standard fruit. These three companies bought out all the local farms and getting land grants by the government to build railroads telephone lines and roads. if any of the politicians stepped out of line military action would be taken by either hired fighters or by the united states. this system still affects many central american countries till this day. since many of there natural resources where stolen from the people and corrupt governments followed one after another many of these countries still have high level of poverty and crime.
panama disease
Globalization is generally regarded as a positive giving rise to a smaller more interconnected world. Still like the case of the banana republics globalization has its down sides. these faster through-way bring goods and ideas around the world but they also brings disease. panama disease was a fungus "Fusarium oxysporum" that eradicated the gros michael species of bananas the most widely produced and traded variety of banana in the world . The fungus was able to exploit one big weakness in bananas and in banana cultivation. Bananas reproduce by a process called Parthenogenesis meaning "virgin birth" the process involves a farmer planting a part of an already existing plant which then gross to be it's plant. The flaw in this technique is that all bananas are clones of each other sharing almost 99% of there DNA. Still knowing this the major banana production was limited to a single type of banana the "Gros Michel". So when the first signs of the fungus was found in panama there was not much growers could do to stop the spread. The fungus is easy to spread, taking only a contaminated glove to spread the fungus. And with the well managed infrastructures of railways the fungus did spread to country to country. by the 1960's the gros michel was virtually extinct to be replaced by the Cavendish which was immune to panama disease first strain TR1 those it became the banana we eat today. Still the fungus plagues banana crops. In the late 1990s, Panama disease emerged in Cavendish bananas in taiwan this strain called tropical race 4 (TR4) than spread to mainland china. still many banana growers didnt take signs seriously. so now in present day strains of TR4 has spread and the strain has spread to the middle east, africa which for them banana is a staple crop and if the banana crops fail in these areas the people living in these areas would face major food shortages.
When studying globalization it's easy to focus on technology. You think of airplanes making travel around the world a matter of days not a matter of months. You think of the internet connecting people all over the world without anyone leaving your house. Even the telephone which some may consider old technology by today standards lets us speak with other all around the world. So it's easy to see why the humble banana can be overlooked as an effect of globalization. But a fruit first cultivated 15000 years ago half a world . It has shaped the lives of Africans being one of their staple crops , contributed to basic privation of whole countries by united states business. it's a major part of trade negotiation between countries around the world. and become the most popular fruit the united states. People in the U.S eat twice as many banana as they do apples. i'ts easy to say that banana is the global fruit.
Sources
[1]“Coles Drops Price of Bananas to $1 per Kilo to Help Growers.” Www.dailytelegraph.com.au, www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/coles-drops-price-of-bananas-to-1-per-kilo-to-help-growers/news-story/a61b964c1b16552827cab76b41c8b1bd.
[2]Banana Republcs.” Http://Www.locomotiveonline.com, www.locomotiveonline.com/locomotive/the-banana-republic-catch
[3]Fusarium Oxysporum.” Http://Swettlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu, www.locomotiveonline.com/locomotive/the-banana-republic-catch/.
[4]Forde, Kaelyn. “Banana Republic Blues: Militarization and Resources in Honduras.” NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 47, no. 1, 2014, pp. 10–13.,
:[5] Ordonez N, Seidl MF, Waalwijk C, Drenth A, Kilian A, Thomma BPHJ, et al. (2015) Worse Comes to Worst: Bananas and Panama Disease— When Plant and Pathogen Clones Meet. PLoS Pathog 11(11):
[1]“Coles Drops Price of Bananas to $1 per Kilo to Help Growers.” Www.dailytelegraph.com.au, www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/coles-drops-price-of-bananas-to-1-per-kilo-to-help-growers/news-story/a61b964c1b16552827cab76b41c8b1bd.
[2]Banana Republcs.” Http://Www.locomotiveonline.com, www.locomotiveonline.com/locomotive/the-banana-republic-catch
[3]Fusarium Oxysporum.” Http://Swettlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu, www.locomotiveonline.com/locomotive/the-banana-republic-catch/.
[4]Forde, Kaelyn. “Banana Republic Blues: Militarization and Resources in Honduras.” NACLA Report on the Americas, vol. 47, no. 1, 2014, pp. 10–13.,
:[5] Ordonez N, Seidl MF, Waalwijk C, Drenth A, Kilian A, Thomma BPHJ, et al. (2015) Worse Comes to Worst: Bananas and Panama Disease— When Plant and Pathogen Clones Meet. PLoS Pathog 11(11):