The plantations we visit today grow and export tropical fruits such as bananas and pineapples from Costa Rica. Compare and contrast the supply chain of bananas and pineapple with that of coffee in terms of complexity and reach. In terms of sustainability, what does each do to protect the environment, its workers, and the community? What are some of the threats that banana and pineapple plantations face and what are they doing to mitigate them? If you were a plantation worker, would you prefer working on a coffee plantation, a banana plantation, or a pineapple plantation? Why?

Coffee from start to finish is a complex process. The picking progress is by hand, and cannot be picked all at once. Once picked, they have to be washed, fermented, and dried. After that, they are sent to be roasted and how they are roasted changes the taste of the coffee. Because of this complex process, coffee is a very collaborative process. Within the country of Costa Rica, there is a group that helps determine the coffee prices and coffee growers often combine beans to give to growers. In terms of reach, while coffee is exported from the country, a lot of it stays country. Within their reach, only a fraction goes to the America’s and Europe. The coffee countries have better strong holds within the Central American Market, 

Banana is not an overly complicated growing process. Though it is labor heavy, compared to coffee, it aires on the side of simplicity. Pineapples, however, are slightly more complicated to grow. As mentioned on the tour, they need very specific growing conditions that much constantly be monitored, in addition, if picked or grown in the wrong way, they will be rejected. Banana and Pineapple have a rather simple export process. They take the plants to a packaging plant and they are exported. In terms of reach, pineapples and bananas are a much more international product. 90% of pineapples grown in Costa Rica are exported to places like the Americas and Canada. This is a drastic change from coffee. Clearly, because Costa Rica has transitioned from coffee growing to more focus on tropical fruits, both the profit and reach that the fruit can give them is greater than coffee. 

In terms of sustainability, coffee plantations focus on overall sustainability. They use natural pesticides, using energy efficient methods like sun-drying, and use hydropower to power their cleaning plants. Furthermore, they reuse parts of the coffee plant for fire wood, compost, and other things. It is pretty spilt, between the coffee plantation, of first, how well they take care of the workers and give back to the community. Farms like Doka and Life Monteverde are very focused on providing a good life for the workers and continuing their communities, even though their workers may be immigrants. However, companies like Cafe Brit seems to brush aside their workers rights to promote their ascetics. 

The tropical fruit has less of focus on sustainability in my personal opinion. Though many companies strive for the organic label, it is often a very vague description. Organic certified means that companies don’t use some pest or herbicides. However, it doesn’t exclude all pesticides and doesn’t encourage many other sustainable practices like composting, reusing waste from plants, and using natural fertilizers. Very similar to coffee plantation, smaller fruit plantations have communities that all farm together and work together to make life better for everyone. However, the larger plantations don’t seem to emphasize workers rights and building communities. They also heavily rely on Nicaraguan workers, which as immigrants are often seen as lower and treated as thus.

I would say the most prevalent issue facing the tropical fruit plantation is mono crop diseases. Because the crop is all the same, one disease has the ability to wipe out an entire plantation. The way this is mitigated by large plantation is usually pesticides. However, smaller plantations, like the banana plantation use more environmentally friendly methods such as cleans the tool in-between work on different banana. Furthermore, many of the tropical plantations face quality standards when they get to the packing plants. Many of these standards are hard to achieve without the assistant of pesticides, herbicides, and other cosmetic chemicals. This makes it hard for companies to balance for both profit and sustainability. 

As a plantation worker, I would want to work on a coffee plantation for several reasons. First of all, short work time, only four months instead of a full year. Second, you ave the shade of the coffee plant instead of being in the hot sun all day. Furthermore, many of the smaller plantations treat their workers well. I would particularly want to work at Doka. They offer housing and school for the children. Also, even though there are sometimes snakes in the bushes, I believe that I will make friends with them because I love snakes 🙂