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In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resource..|alt=]]A banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, where the country is operated as a Private property commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class. Typically, a banana republic has a society of extremely stratified , usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites. The ruling class controls the primary sector of the economy by exploiting labor. Such exploitation is enabled by collusion between the state and favored economic Monopoly, in which the profit, derived from the private exploitation of public lands, is private property. At the same time, the debts incurred thereby are the financial responsibility of the public treasury. Therefore, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile oligarchy that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.
Such an imbalanced economy remains limited by the uneven economic development of towns and countries and usually reduces the national currency into devalued (paper money), thereby rendering the country ineligible for Development aid.
In the early 20th century, the United Fruit Company, a multinational corporation, was instrumental in the creation of the banana republic phenomenon. Big Fruit , NY Times Together with other American corporations, such as the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and leveraging the power of the U.S. government, the corporations created the political, economic, and social circumstances that led to a coup of the locally elected democratic government that established banana republics in Central American countries such as Honduras and Guatemala Where did banana republics get their name? , The Economist; No official apology has ever been done by any banana company or the U.S. with only the C.I.A. backed dictator of Guatemala apologizing in 2011. An Apology for a Guatemalan Coup, 57 Years Later 2011-10-20 , New York Times
In the mid-1870s, to manage the new Agribusiness business enterprise in the countries of Central America, Keith founded the Tropical Trading and Transport Company: one-half of what would later become the United Fruit Company (UFC), later Chiquita, created in 1899 by merger with the Boston Fruit Company, owned by Andrew Preston. By the 1930s, the international political and economic tensions created by the United Fruit Company enabled the corporation to control 80–90% of the banana business in the U.S.Alison Acker (1988), p. 63.
By the late 19th century, three American multinational corporations (the UFC, the Standard Fruit Company, and the Cuyamel Fruit Company) dominated the cultivation, harvesting, and exportation of bananas, and controlled the road, rail, and port infrastructure of Honduras. In the northern coastal areas near the Caribbean Sea, the Honduran government ceded to the banana companies of a laid railroad, despite there being neither passenger nor freight railroad service to Tegucigalpa, the capital city. Among the Honduran people, the United Fruit Company was known as El Pulpo ("The Octopus" in English), because its influence pervaded Honduran society, controlled their country's transport infrastructure, and manipulated Honduran national politics with anti-labour violence.
In 1924, despite the UFC monopoly, the Vaccaro brothers established the Standard Fruit Company (later the Dole plc) to export Honduran bananas to the U.S. port of New Orleans. The fruit-exporting corporations kept U.S. prices low by legalistic manipulation of Latin American national land use laws to cheaply buy large tracts of prime agricultural land for corporate banana plantations in the republics of the Caribbean Basin, the Central America, and tropical South America; the American fruit companies then employed the dispossessed Latin American natives as low-wage employees.
By the 1930s, the United Fruit Company owned of land in Central America and the Caribbean and was the single largest landowner in Guatemala. Such holdings gave it great power over the governments of small countries, one of the factors confirming the suitability of the phrase "banana republic".
The mercenary army of the Cuyamel Fruit Company, led by Christmas, effected a coup d'état against President Miguel R. Dávila (1907–1911) and installed Bonilla (1912–1913). The United States ignored the deposition of the elected government of Honduras by a private army, justified by the U.S. State Department's misrepresenting Dávila as too politically liberal and a poor businessman whose management had indebted Honduras to Great Britain. This was a geopolitically unacceptable circumstance in light of the Monroe Doctrine. The coup d'état was a consequence of the Dávila government's having slighted the Cuyamel Fruit Company by colluding with the rival United Fruit Company to award them a monopoly contract for the Honduran banana in exchange for the UFC's brokering of U.S. government loans to Honduras.
The political instability consequent to the coup d'état stalled the Honduran economy, and the unpayable external debt (c. US$4 billion) of Honduras was excluded from access to international investment capital. That financial deficit perpetuated Honduran economic stagnation and perpetuated the image of Honduras as a banana republic. The inherited foreign debt functionally undermined the Honduran government, which allowed foreign corporations to manage the country and become sole employers of the Honduran people. The American fruit companies controlled the economic infrastructure (road, rail, and port, telegraph and telephone) they had built in Honduras.
The U.S. dollar went on to become the legal-tender currency of Honduras; Christmas became commander of the Honduran Army, and later was appointed U.S. Consul to Honduras. 23 years later,after corporate interest among the American businessmen, Zemurray assumed control of the rival United Fruit Company in 1933.
During the 1950s, the United Fruit Company sought to convince the governments of U.S. presidents Harry S. Truman (1945–1953) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) that the popular, elected government of President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala was secretly pro-Soviet Union for having expropriated unused "fruit company lands" to landless peasants. In the Cold War (1945–1991) context of the proactive Anti-communism politics exemplified by U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy in the years 1947–1957, Geopolitics concerns about the security of the Western Hemisphere facilitated Eisenhower's ordering and authorising Operation Success. It was a 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état by means of which the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency deposed the democratically elected government of Árbenz and installed the pro-business government of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas (1954–1957), which lasted for three years until his assassination by a presidential guard.
A mixed history of elected presidents and Hegemony were the governments of Guatemala in the course of the 36-year Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996). However, in 1986, at the 26-year mark, the Guatemalan people promulgated a new political constitution, and elected Vinicio Cerezo (1986–1991) president; then Jorge Serrano Elías (1991–1993).
Ecuador is the world's largest exporter of bananas, representing over a third of international banana sales, and banana export revenues were a quarter of Ecuador's total value of merchandise exports. Ecuador is considered a banana republic country due to its dependence on the banana and multinational corporations for the functionality of its economy. Still, it differs in a few characteristics of the typical banana republic country. Instead of the major banana corporations that contain large plantations throughout the country, such as Dole plc, Chiquita, or Del Monte, Ecuador's banana production mainly comes from over five thousand small-holder farmers. Corporations originally established plantations in Ecuador, but issues with switching from the Gros Michel variety to the Cavendish banana variety, lack of knowledge about this new variety, and an overvalued exchange rate caused the corporations to give production back to independent farmers around the 1960s. Corporations now directly contract smallholder farmers in Ecuador instead of owning their plantations. However, corporations still influence prices paid to producers, pesticide use, and other growing decisions. There are a variety of actors that participate in the production of bananas in Ecuador. There are groups that provide financial and economic services to fund the independent farmers. Some organizations include the Ecuadorian Central Bank and Banking for Rural and Urban Productive Development. A different set of actors supplies research for producers so they can combat diseases and produce bananas more efficiently. Some examples are the Agrocalidad and phytosanitary regulatory agency, as well as research groups from universities in Ecuador. Lastly, there is a group of actors that are manufacturers, importers, or suppliers of agrochemicals and machinery. Banana exporting countries rely heavily on cartons that transport bananas, supplied by companies such as Industria Cartonera Ecutoriana and Cartonera Pichincha.Mosquera, L.E.; Alvarez, D.A.; Ritter, T.; Mockshell, J.; Vera, D.; Dita, M M. (2023) Banana value chain profile for Ecuador: The world's largest exporter is at risk from Fusarium TR4. Cali (Colombia): Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). 10 p.
External features taken into consideration include being overripe, having insect damage, being short in size, or containing scarring on the peel. Internal features that cause bananas to be rejected include taste, texture, sweetness, and shelf life. The Cavendish banana variety accomplishes being the preferable banana due to its marketability and is the most common banana on the market. The largest importers of bananas are the United States, Japan, and the European Union. The EU imports the majority of bananas, but also contains regulations on the features of the product. The European Union requires bananas to be free of bruises, unripe and green, with the stalk intact, and the banana itself cannot have abnormal curvature.
Women are often excluded from benefiting from agricultural cooperatives because a majority are not landowners and lack power in the decision-making process. There is no trade union to educate women about legal working rights, according to the Coordinating Body of Latin American Banana and Agro-Industrial Unions (COLSIBA). However, gender quotas are being implemented in agricultural programs to advance gender equality and allow women to be Beneficiary of land.
There have been criticisms of women working in direct contact with Pesticide , Herbicide and through the application of chemicals and washing bags that contain insecticides. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are particularly affected, as pregnant women will work with chemicals until the later stages of pregnancy and will return to work after the birth. Exposure to pesticides, as well as smoke from tobacco, waste burning, and cooking fuel increase the risks of asthma, rhinitis, and allergic skin conditions. Women banana workers often face the challenge of being a caretaker and bananera, as there is limited access to childcare, limited education and training, and a difficulty of working more than one job. Women are often at risk of sexual assault and domestic violence due to issues in management of Occupational Health, Safety, and Environment.
The EU Common Market Organization for Bananas was a collection of efforts to regulate the banana market. The EU was aiming to assure that former colonies would get higher prices for their bananas considering their higher production costs, honor the Lomé Convention, and ensure consumers had an adequate supply of bananas from Latin America. An agreement was reached in April 2001 between the United States and EU. The EU implemented a system of importation based on historical licensing, with Latin American countries and ACP countries having their own categories of licenses, designated tariffs, and quotas. Chiquita and Dole plc together share 44% of the licenses.
The most popular banana on the commercial market is the Cavendish banana banana, a type of banana with no genetic variation to other bananas of its variety. The cavendish is not seeded, and propagates by producing vegetative suckers that can be removed from the parents and planted separately. New sprouts are clones of the parent plant, unless they have a genetic mutation, making them more susceptible to disease. The most popular banana before the Cavendish banana, the Gros Michel variety, was wiped out by Panama disease due to a lack of Evolution to become more resistant to the disease.
The primary solution used are and Agrochemical However, many pesticides have various negative effects on health, the environment, and economy. Pesticides and other chemicals to ward off disease also account for almost a third of production costs on banana farms. Others have proposed genetic engineering, but it is a controversial topic. Other solutions include removal of affected leaves, but this can affect the period when bananas are harvested for export, known as the green period. Management systems can also be improved so communication is clear between farmers and different levels of government about the spread of diseases.
... The Fruit Company, Inc. Reserved for itself the most succulent, The central coast of my own land, The delicate waist of the Americas. It rechristened its territories As the "Banana Republics", And over the sleeping dead, Over the restless heroes Who brought about the greatness, The liberty and the flags, It established a comic opera ...
On 14 May 1986, then Australian Treasurer Paul Keating stated that Australia might become a banana republic. This has received both commentary and criticism and is seen as part of a turning point in Australia's political and economic history. (2025). 9781921410567, UNSW Press. ISBN 9781921410567
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