Bananas are Ecuador’s major source of revenue. Let’s follow a banana on its journey from the farm. As of December 30, 2003 the price of bananas are $2.60 a box (the price of bananas is printed daily in Ecuadorian newspapers). There are approximately 100 bananas in each box. An average farmer will farm an area of one hectare. Farmers are responsible for the cultivation, fertilization and the harvesting of the bananas. One hectare can produce about 70 boxes every four months.
Upon harvest, farmers sell their bananas to brokers like Dole, Chiquita, or Bonita, who export them to the United States and Europe (which requires transportation, fumigation and import paperwork).
What is the current price of bananas in your market? Can you determine how much profit the banana brokers and the banana farmers are making?
Let’s go one step further. Pedro owns a hectare of land and makes $180 every four months farming bananas. Pedro has a wife and four children and has his parents living with him. To keep production up, he must buy fertilizer and tools for his farm, spending about $50 every four months for this. Pedro’s responsibility is to maintain his field, keeping weeds, monkeys, birds and other pests away from his maturing crop, as well as keeping it watered and protected it from the elements. When Pedro sells his crop, he must pay for his families food and his children’s education. What happens when a flood or insect invasion destroys his crop? What happens when his children get sick?
As you can see, Ecuadorian banana farmers, make enough money to feed themselves and very little else. This reflects in their communities, as their markets will have fewer goods, and houses will look more rundown due to lack of money to keep them up. This also affects community schools and services, as less money attracts less qualified people and fewer resources.
Where does the money that is made go? As we have seen, the profit level for the farmer is very low, but how about the profit level for the merchant company? As you can see the merchant companies make large profits. How is this reflected in their communities? Communities that reap profits are able to invest in additional services and entertainment for themselves. The schools are better, roads are better, and the selection of goods is better. Business people are drawn towards communities in which there is a flow of money. Pedro’s community does not have money; therefore you will not see a movie theatre there.
Generally good business is founded on good planning. Good planning takes experience, and skills developed over time. When people are working hard to keep their crops up and are constantly in debt, they do not have time nor money for school nor superior planning, thus are doomed to a life of just making ends meet.
1) Should the merchants be concerned with people like Pedro?
2) Should you as consumers be concerned about Pedro?
3) Is this type of business sustainable?
4) What will Pedro be doing in 20 years? Retirement?
Between 1950 and the present day, 60-70% of Ecuadorian mangroves have been cut down. Mangroves are trees that grow in brackish (a combination of fresh and salty) water and provide habitat for many different birds, mammals and fish. Mangroves are found in many areas where fresh water meets the sea. Over time they have adapted to tolerate the mildly salty water, and serve as oxygen producers for the environment around them.
In Ecuador these trees were not cut down for harvest; they were cut down to make way for shrimp farms. The area in which mangroves grow is ideal for shrimping. The tidal flow creates natural brackish pools where shrimp can be raised. Using these areas does not require a lot of modern machinery; it is a natural shrimp producing area.
The shrimp industry has been growing in Ecuador for the past 40 years. Shrimpers borrowed money to expand and produce large quantities of shrimp. Unfortunately, there are been problems with expansion. Instead of raising 100 shrimp per pool, farmers were pushing the limits—500 per pool, 1000 per pool. More shrimp requires more food and more oxygen, which generates more waste products. A similar example would be if a family was living in a two bedroom apartment. At first everything is fine, but what happens if two other families come to share the apartment, 4 others, 12 others ? Where would everyone sleep, how much garbage would they produce, and could they get a long without killing each other ?
These natural shrimping pools are great examples of “open systems”. Open systems are defined by their open exchange with the natural environment. Therefore, these systems are dependent on the outside environment. “Closed systems” are opposite, and are defined as systems that regulate resources and conditions within the system. Open systems usually have to tolerate a wider range of conditions than closed systems.
Using the example of the families living in an apartment. If the families were living within an open system, they would rely on their environment to provide food, take away trash, and regulate the temperature. No trash trucks, supermarkets, or central air- these are machine or services that are used to regulate a closed system.
As mentioned earlier, these shrimperies were part of an open system. They were dependent on the tide to bring in new water and wash away wastewater. The tide would also regulate water temperature. However, as production increased the natural environment was not able to keep up with the new variables added to the system. As shrimp populations increased so did the need for food for the shrimp, as the populations increased and the feed increase so did the waste products. Soon the environments were not able to support these large populations and the shrimp industry crashed, and by the mid 90’s the industry was down to 40% production and the mangroves were reduced to a fraction of their former area.
The out-of-control nature of the shrimp industry caused it to crash. The Ecuadorians did not have the money to purchase machines or pools that could maximize and properly regulate shrimp production. Their demands on the natural environment were too great and something had to give. This seems to be going on everywhere and not just in Ecuador.
1) What is causing our need to produce?
2) What is the limit of our ability to produce?
3) How can we prevent this from happening in the future?
4) Where did the money go that was generated in the boom, and subsequently lost?
This is a note from one of our friends in Ecuador, Isabel. She and here friends provides us with the information about the bananas and shrimperies. Although she was born in Quebec she and here family live in Ecuador and run a hostel in Guayaquil called Dream Kapture. She is a wealth of informationa and a wonderful hostess.
At the end of our conversations about the environment and Ecuador we were a little depressed as it seemed like our world was being destroyed. Rather than focus on the forces of destruction I asked her about what companies and organizations were doing good work to change practices of destruction and looking towards practices of sustainability. More importantly how can we help.
Isabel offered some information and a story :
How can you help? You can contribute by making sure you are buying the right products; look for the sign “Fair Trade” or “Equitable” on products. You can find these labels on coffee or chocolate, as well as a few other products from developing nations. You can help by just being aware of what is going on in other countries like Ecuador. You can help by talking about the unbalanced economical world we live in. You can help by participating on humanitarian volunteer work. There also some great programs for students from age 13.
This is a good story that I like:
One day there was a huge jungle fire, so all the animals gathered together. The animals observed a small bird flying back and forth as fast as he could. “What’s he doing?” the elephant asked to the tiger. “I don’t know,” the tiger said, “I think he is spitting water on the fire.” All of the animals starting laughing, because they taught he was nuts! So the elephant asked the small bird, “What are you doing?” and the small bird responded, “I am doing whatever I can. If we all do whatever we can, maybe we could put out this fire!” So it doesn’t matter how much you do, as long as you do what you can.
Thanks so much for listening, hope to see you one day in Ecuador.
Isabelle Dorion
PDG/ Fondation Laval Dorion