Today we once again ventured to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, however this time we visited two plantations. The first we saw focused on bananas/plantains and the other grew pineapples. Right when we arrived I was struck by how different the supply chain for these fruits was from that of coffee. It is so much simpler because all that needs to occur is mainly harvesting and exportation, with the exception of processing plantains, whereas coffee requires much more work to process and sell.

As all the farms we have visited depend on their environment, sustainability is a large focus for these farmers. Organic farming has been a large focus in all of the plantations that we have visited, as these farmers work to reduce their waste and reuse any resources that they have available. All of the plantations require labor, and this is where I saw the largest difference in the different fruits we have seen. Unlike coffee plants which are grown on mountains with large amounts of shade, bananas, and pineapples are grown in fields with no shade. These working conditions can be much more difficult for the laborers, especially with the climate these fruits require. We also learned about how these organic farms often receive or buy manure or other fertilizing/compostable materials from neighboring farms. The sharing of materials allows less to go to waste to form a more sustainable community. ‘

The banana and pineapple plantations do face a grave threat, in the form of diseases. These fruits are mono-crops, meaning that they are all clones of a mother plant. Mono-crops are extraordinarily susceptible to disease because any disease that can kill one of them can kill all of them. Organic farmers struggle with this issue because they can’t use synthetic fungicides and pesticides. So they are developing other ways that can ward off these diseases.

If I were a plantation worker, I would definitely want to work on a coffee plantation. The main reason is the climate. Coffee requires cooler temperatures and less humidity which would be much easier to do physical labor in. I would also want the breathtaking views that the mountains have to offer!