I would say the coffee supply chain is more complex than that of bananas and pineapples, especially at the manufacturer/distributor section of the supply chain. Whereas Dole and Chiquita have the most significant reign over the banana and pineapple supply chain, there is not one specific company that has the most control over the coffee supply chain. Doka, Cafe Britt, and Life Monteverde, although very successful in their business, are just some of the countless coffee distributors in Costa Rica. Also, the make process for coffee is a lot more complicated than for bananas and pineapples. Most coffee manufacturers deliver their product to their customers in an already-roasted, often grounded, and packaged form, which adds extra steps in transferring the commodity from distributor to customer. Bananas and pineapples, for contrast, typically do not undergo such processes…manufacturers may put a Dole or Chiquita sticker on their fruits at most, for example.
In relation to reach, the supply chain for coffee, bananas, and pineapples are pretty similar. All three commodities have had great success in exporting to the United States primarily, and also to Europe and parts of Asia.
As for practices in sustainability, coffee, banana, and pineapple plantations all engage in using natural pesticides, minimizing waste, and fostering a strong/familial sense of community. Coffee plantations’ initiatives towards environmental sustainability include recycling the water they use to differentiate sinking/floating coffee berries, reusing coffee berry skins as compost, and creating their own biofertilizer. In relation worker benefits on coffee plantations, Doka provides their workers with housing, electricity, daycare, and more. I cannot make this generalization for every single coffee plantation in Costa Rica, however; many of our tour guides have pointed out that workers rights still have much to be improved. Banana plantations repurpose banana leaves as containers (as opposed to Tupperware, for example) due to the natural latex the leaves produce, and they can also be used to cook picadillo. The plantation we visited today fostered a strong sense of community/unity among women. Francini, our tour guide, told us about the female-operated plantation’s mission in empowering women, and later her mom and aunt demonstrated how to make patacones so that we could help out in cooking lunch. Finally, environmental sustainability initiatives for pineapple plantations include using a plastic covering to protect the pineapple plants in place of herbicides, and using organic fertilizers such as fishmeal and bloodmeal from cows. Pineapples that are rejected from commercial sale but still perfectly fine to eat are given to the plantation workers to take home to their families.
Banana plantations face the risk of disease, as bananas are grown as a mono-crop–only the cavendish variation is grown. Generally, banana plantations place new plants by cutting off the risoma (spelling? the little shoots at the bottom of a full-grown plant) and plant them farther away from the genetically identical mother plant. However, this practice results in a plantation with very little genetic diversity, which makes the plants very susceptible to disease. Banana plantation workers mitigate this challenge by using liquid spray of natural microorganisms such as beneficial bacteria in order to protect the plants from fungi and insects that attack the plants. Another challenge banana plantations face is moles eating the plants. The plantation we visited today tried using traps, but with limited success, but they’re turning to electricity (maybe electric wires??) to, inferably, zap and scare away the moles….I think they’re still looking for other solutions, though.
Pineapple plantations face the same problem of insects and fungi attacking the plants, and they make use of the same liquid spray of microorganisms to keep the plants healthy. Another challenge is navigating the natural flowering process of pineapples, which causes the plants to produce pineapples whenever they “want to”/at random. In order to control the pineapple plants into producing fruit at the same time, pineapple growers have to maintain the correct growing conditions for the plants so that they are happy and healthy (although some plants, even in ideal growing conditions, just don’t want to produce fruit). Pineapple growers mass-spray the plants with ethylene so that all the plants will start to produce fruit at the same time–this is the one nuance that makes the farm organic, but not the pineapple fruits.
If I were a plantation worker, I think I would prefer working on the coffee plantation. First, there seemed to be more trees on these plantations (mango, eucalyptus trees) when compared to banana and pineapple plantations, since coffee can be grown in shadier areas. More trees means more shade on the plantation, and in all honesty, makes the work environment more aesthetically pleasing. To add, I just really enjoyed the work environment on Life Monteverde, specifically, which was a coffee plantation. As we were taking our tour with Jairo and Don Guillermo, several workers came up to say hi and were making jokes with each other, keeping the environment upbeat and alive. All the workers seemed very close, almost like family, and I think I would I would appreciate a work environment like that of Life Monteverde’s if I were a plantation worker.