After visiting the pineapple and banana plantation, my knowledge about the growth and exportation of these various products expanded. Of the three products, bananas are the least complex to produce. The banana production involves digging out the smallest plant at the base of the banana crop and then planting it somewhere else to reproduce it. Once the bananas look ready, they cut the crop in the middle to let it gentle fall, before chopping off the bushel and the rest of the crop for compost. One major problem is that bananas are clones so a disease can wipe out an entire farm. This specific farm doesn’t have crop insurance and they get their seeds from local family members and neighbors so if this were to happen they would have to rebuild their farm. They utilize every inch of their space by planting intermediate crops like sweet potatoes, spinach, corn, etc. Another threat of bananas is the raccoon like animal that eats the roots of the bananas plants and in order to combat this problem they use the intermediate plants as an aversion. The farmers use a string like material to hold down the banana plant to protect it from weather because it is not made from wood.

On the pineapple farm, there were 22,000 pineapples planted per acre and a skilled farmer can plant about 6,000 pineapples a day. They cover the soil with plastic to ensure the organic quality of the fruit and to prevent it from pesticide or chemical exposure. Pineapples release ethylene when they are stressed or sick which results in the production of a pineapple, but to control this growth the farmers spray ethylene gas eight months after the plant is planted. It takes about a year for a pineapple plant to produce a pineapple and a plant can only produce one pineapple at a time. Additionally, you can test the highest leaf of a pineapple to see if the crop needs more zinc, calcium, or nitrogen. Fortunately, you can take the crown of the pineapple and reuse it to plant another pineapple plant. Brazil is the largest production country but they consume most of the pineapple in their country.

Pineapples and coffee both require an immense amount of work so they hire Nicaraguan workers to tend to the plantations. Not to mention, they both send most of their high quality products to the United States and their lower quality to local shops in Costa Rica. The shipment for both pineapple and coffee is very expensive and in high demand. The container for a pineapple shipment is about $12,000 and $21,000 for coffee containers since covid. If I were living on a plantation, I would want to work on a pineapple plantation because I think I would enjoy it the most. I am not the most avid coffee drinker and the taste of bananas is overwhelming in every meal. Not to mention, the work that goes into producing pineapple sounds so rewarding.