I had never really thought about how pineapples grew until today, when I got to see them at a pineapple farm. It turns out that they grow in a ground plant, and it can take over a year for one to grow! On the farm, we rode around in a wagon that was pulled by a tractor and got to see all the parts of the farm. However, there was not much to it. Pineapples are fairly easy to grow. You place the green pineapple crown from an older pineapple into the ground and let it grow with some water, light, and compost. They use multiple sprays on the crops, for example, insect repellent made from chile and garlic, to prevent moths from going into the pineapple and laying eggs. They also use ethylene gas to induce the pineapple flowering process, which allows the fruit to form. Then, when the pineapples are somewhat green, they are picked that way, they are fresh and ripen when consumers buy them in stores. The farm we visited grows organic pineapples, which have a couple of major differences compared to regular pineapples. The main one being that they cover the ground with plastic and then grow the plants over the plastic after planting the crown in a hole. The plastic allows the farmers to control the dirt and water exposed to each plant and prevent erosion. They are also grown further apart from one another; the more space allows the pineapples to grow larger, however, this means less can be grown organically in a plot of land. 

As compared to the coffee farms we visited last week, the beans are much harder to pick because they must be picked when ripe, and not all beans ripen at the same time, so the same plant must be revisited multiple times. The picked beans then go through multiple stages of peeling and cleaning by machines to prepare the beans for roasting, whereas almost everything done with pineapples is done by hand, other than the trucks used to transport and one machine to spray the repellent. However, both plantations use natural ingredients for compost and fertilizer. They also use intercropping and crop rotation to prevent soil depletion and to act as wind breakers. 

The conditions of the workers on both farms are pretty comparable. They both require workers to be in extreme heat while doing manual labor. However, they both offer housing accommodations for workers during harvesting seasons. Many coffee farms have houses right outside the plantations, and the pineapple farm has a community outside the farm where each family has two houses: one for the family and the other for the family to rent out to the workers, but the workers must pay the families. The coffee farmers also have a couple more benefits, like childcare and education for their children. Due to these increased benefits, I would much rather work on the coffee farms, plus I love coffee!