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	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Banana Dole</title>
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	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
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		<title>Dole backs down, drops suit against filmmaker</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/883#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/883#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Oct 2009 02:03:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[PLUS: See the film in New York Wednesday, October 21, at 7:15 PM. Details here. After pressure from the Swedish government  - efforts to boycott the banana company were underway, with a strong chance they would spread to other EU nations &#8211; Dole dropped a lawsuit it had filed against Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten and his film, &#8220;BANANAS!*&#8221;, which tells the story of the company&#8217;s pesticide use in the 1970s and the damage that practice inflicted on Nicaraguan workers. Here&#8217;s the full text of Dole&#8217;s statement: WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CALIFORNIA &#8211; October 14, 2009 Dole Food Company, Inc. today announced that it is dismissing its defamation lawsuit against filmmakers Fredrik Gertten, Margarete Jangård and WG Film AB in the Los Angeles Superior Court, relating to the film BANANAS!*. Dole made its decision in light of the free speech concerns being expressed in Sweden, although it continues to believe in the merits of its case. Dole strongly believes in freedom of speech and expression, which are so important in Sweden and the United States. [Emphasis added. Dole's view of our own First Amendment rights is, apparently, mostly, afterthought.] &#8220;While the filmmakers continue to show a film that is fundamentally flawed and contains [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Special Report: Why Dole sues filmmakers</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/848#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/848#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:50:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Latin America]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=848</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The following is the original English text of an article I wrote for Dagens Nyheter, the largest daily newspaper in Sweden. The story is about Dole&#8217;s attempt to stop the distribution of &#8220;BANANAS!*&#8221;, a documentary made by Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten that the banana company believes to be untrue. The film is about lawsuits filed against Dole by Nicaraguan workers claiming to have been injured by the company&#8217;s use of a pesticide called Nemagon, or DBCP. In 2007, those workers achieved a partial victory against the banana company &#8211; but a follow-up suit was dismissed earlier this year after lawyers for the fruit giant offered evidence that the lawyer for the laborers had falsified information (here&#8217;s one of many news accounts about the trial&#8217;s denouement.) Here, I explain why I find that &#8220;evidence&#8221; unconvincing &#8211; and why Dole&#8217;s suit has roots not just in a century of  banana industry history, but also in a business model that persists to this day. For background on the issue, have a look at the filmmaker&#8217;s timeline or at Dole&#8217;s entire page on Nemagon. More links below. THE BURNING OF THE LA CEIBA, HONDURAS TOWN HALL in 1903 was the work of more than an ordinary [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Tweeting Banana Arrivals in San Diego</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/523#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/523#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 02 Aug 2009 10:41:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=523</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From Danforth&#8217;s flickr stream. Writer/comedian Danforth France saw this Dole freighter unloading in San Diego while he was attending last week&#8217;s Comic-Con, and he sent me the linked tweet. The ship is the Dole Honduras &#8211; one of two that constitute the banana giant&#8217;s Pacific fleet. The vessel makes over 20 annual north-south trips along a route that stretches from San Diego to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala; Caldera, Costa Rica; Guayaquil, Ecuador; and Paita, Peru, according to  Dole Ocean Cargo. Danforth&#8217;s image was taken July 26, and the vessel&#8217;s current schedule indicates that it is handling shorter haul work right now. The Port of San Diego&#8217;s Marine Information System indicates that it has already made a full round trip since then, and is due back today. It will depart for Costa Rica on Tuesday, August 4, The most interesting thing about the vessel is its color. Tradition has it that banana boats be painted white. Chiquita&#8217;s ships, starting even before the early 1900s,were known as the &#8220;Great White Fleet.&#8221; Though the Honduras is a bit of a shabby beige, it fits the traditional scheme, which is more than just  custom. Bananas are highly perishable and grown far away. They have to be shipped [...]]]></description>
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		<title>A Guide to Those &quot;Baby&quot; Bananas &#8211; and What They Prove</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/6#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:33:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/a-guide-to-those-baby-bananas-and-what-they-prove/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Huggable, lovable &#8211; but not the kind of baby banana that I&#8217;m talking about. Though the vast majority of bananas we buy &#8211; statistically, all &#8211; are of the endangered Cavendish variety, there&#8217;s a good chance you&#8217;ve seen something else, these days and if you&#8217;re a banana-type (or have become one), you might have wondered: what are those little bananas? Both Chiquita and Dole offer versions of the half-sized fruit, with Chiquita selling them under the &#8220;Minis&#8221; brand, and Dole offering them as &#8220;Baby&#8221; bananas. In the &#8220;big&#8221; banana world, there&#8217;s absolutely no difference between what Chiquita, Dole (or any other commercial banana importer) sells: everything is Cavendish. Action surrounds small-time fruit. For the first time in over a century, the two biggest banana companies are slugging it out for a market niche with different varieties. The Chiquita &#8220;Mini&#8221; is a breed called Pisang Mas, originally from Malaysia, but now &#8211; like all bananas imported to the U.S. &#8211; grown in Latin America. Dole actually sells three different varieties under the Baby band name &#8211; Orito, Lady Finger, and Manzano. The fruit are tough to find, since they&#8217;re in various stages of test-marketing, as well as subject to seasonal variation. [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Dole, Others Sued in U.S for Ecuador Pesticides</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/31#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:43:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/?p=31</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This exclusive report copyright 2008 www.bananabook.org. Two of the world&#8217;s biggest banana companies, the American chemical companies who supply them, along with several other companies they do business with, are being sued by pilots, ground crew, and residents of the Ecuadorian plantation town of Puerto Viejo for health damage they allegedly suffered during years of spraying of Mancozeb, a fungicide used to combat Black Sigatoka, the most common and costly disease affecting commercial bananas. The suit was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) on September 18, 2008. It names Dole, Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Chemical and Noboa &#8211; which markets bananas in the U.S. under the &#8220;Bonita&#8221; brand name &#8211; as primary defendants, and accuses them of using the chemical despite knowing that it would cause birth defects, cancer, and respiratory and fertility problems among banana workers and their families. Mancozeb is listed by the Pesticde Action Network as having &#8220;toxicity to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.&#8221; Mancozeb is a fairly common garden fungicide, and the U.S. EPA regards it as safe, but only in small quantities and with proper protective gear and usage. The suit alleges all were [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Banana Companies Rat Each Other Out</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/39#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:04:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Politics]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The biggest news item I avoid in this blog are banana trade wars. That&#8217;s because it would take me thousands and thousands of words to explain why the U.S., Europe, and the big banana companies have been fighting for years over who gets to sell bananas where. There have been resolutions that have led to no resolutions, problems that have led to more problems, and lots of ugly behavior on both sides. Suffice it to say that the whole thing is corrupt, and that none of it really affects whether or not bananas show up on store shelves (though it does affect where those bananas come from, and prices, as you&#8217;ll see, below.) The problem is that when you enter the labyrinth, you just can&#8217;t find your way back. Sorry. But sometimes, I just have to say something. Last week, Dole and Del Monte &#8211; Dole&#8217;s the second biggest banana company in the world, and Del Monte, depending on how you count, is probably third or fourth &#8211; were fined a total of $83 million by the European Union for conspiring to fix banana prices in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden. These fines were good. [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Shenanigans!</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/50#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/50#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:25:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Price Watch]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/shenanigans/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The new record holder, blocks from my house. A buck and a half a pound for what? &#8220;Very sweet&#8221; bananas? Not even organic. These were at the weekly farmers market held on Sunset Boulevard in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. The genuine fresh produce offered there is great (this week, the strawberries were awesome), but I wonder whether shoppers have any clue that the bananas sold here &#8211; for double the price of what they cost at the Von&#8217;s market five minutes away &#8211; are exactly the same as what they&#8217;d get at that major supermarket. Sweetness is a function of ripeness and travel time. These pricey fruit came from the same Latin American plantations, on the same boats, and via the same trucks that every other banana sold in the U.S. does. The vendor probably peeled off the Chiquita (or Dole, or other major importer) labels. Good news for my shopping neighbors: Pineapples &#8211; at $4.50 each (upper right) &#8211; are a bargain. Vons charges $4.99.]]></description>
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		<title>Chiquita Acknowledges Panama Disease as Threat</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/53#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/53#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:43:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Chiquita]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/chiquita-acknowledges-panama-disease-as-threat/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Panama Disease-ravaged plantation in Asia (from Plant Health Progress.) In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, Chiquita CEO Fernando Aguirre &#8211; for the first time &#8211; publicly acknowledged the existence of Panama Disease (the incurable malady that wiped out the world&#8217;s banana crop in the first half of the 20th century, and that has devastated much of Asia over the past two decades) &#8211; in relation to his company&#8217;s mainstay product, though he downplayed the threat to the point of barely admitting it existed. The story is headlined &#8220;New banana disease poses threat: How serious is open to debate.&#8221; In it, Aguirre described the disease as &#8220;limited,&#8221; and asserted that &#8211; when the disease arrives in Latin America &#8211; quarantine measures would &#8220;pre-empt and prepare&#8221; the advance and effects of the malady. I was interviewed for the story, and I disagreed, pointing out that such measures had failed most everywhere they&#8217;ve been tried in the past. Chiquita CEO Fernando Aguirre, from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Photo by Steven M. Herppich. I was glad to see that the reporter, James Pilcher, also contacted Randy Ploetz, the scientist who is probably the world&#8217;s best authority on the fungus. Ploetz is less grim and [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>&quot;Membrane-wrapped&quot; bananas, branded with their breed name</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/137#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/137#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:49:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Dole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[My Dad sent this one in; it comes from Andy the Hobo Traveler&#8217;s blog. Andy discovered the single-serve fruits at a 7-11 in Manilla; each banana costs about a quarter. &#8220;I can purchase one banana without them getting angry,&#8221; Andy writes. &#8220;I am single, not married, to buy bananas even in the market is annoying, they do not like me to rip off two or three, and one is totally a great way to get them annoyed.&#8221; Single bananas for single buyers isn&#8217;t all that new, but marketing them like candy bars is. Chiquita has just begun doing it in the U.S. We&#8217;ve got plenty of them at convenience stores here in Los Angeles, priced at about 75 cents. Whether here or in Asia, there&#8217;s more to this than just a simple in-store display. A considerable amount of technology and labor is required to sell bananas by the piece &#8211; most of it concerned with consistency at the display case. The bananas need to ripen at the same speed; they need to be sized the same. The process begins at the plantations, according to a March, 2007 story in the Boston Globe: &#8220;At Chiquita&#8217;s packaging plants, workers hand pick the [...]]]></description>
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