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	<title>Dan Koeppel&#039;s Blog &#187; Banana Environment</title>
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	<description>Bananas, Los Angeles, and Transit Geekery</description>
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		<title>Alternate Banana Varieties in NYC</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1046#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/1046#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:01:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Del Monte]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Monoculture]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The corporate banana monoculture, based on the Cavendish variety &#8211; which accounts for 99% of the world&#8217;s export crop &#8211; is both doomed and dangerous. Diseases are striking the world crop, forcing increased used of pesticides (when the diseases are curable, which isn&#8217;t always the case.) Reliance on a single, commodity fruit makes it impossible to do anything but exploit workers and land &#8211; it would be too expensive to do otherwise. The banana industry, however, refuses to budge from the monoculture, for the most part, saying it is impossible to import any other variety in bulk. But that&#8217;s exactly what is being done in so-called ethnic markets. Here&#8217;s a shot I took last month of an alternate variety, commonly known as &#8220;apple&#8221; bananas, being sold under the Manhattan Bridge in New York&#8217;s Chinatown. What does this mean? The fruit comes from Del Monte, one of the world&#8217;s largest banana importers (though it isn&#8217;t a major presence in the U.S.) I&#8217;d ask the question: does &#8220;impossible&#8221; mean that systems really can&#8217;t be developed, or that the major banana outfits &#8211; Dole and Chiquita &#8211; are simply afraid (or lack the creativity) to run their banana business as anything but the [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Wasteful &#8211; but innovative &#8211; banana packaging</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/906#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/906#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:30:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://bigparadela.com/wordpress/?p=906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The reason we have only one kind of banana &#8211; out of the 1,000+ found worldwide &#8211; is partly an issue of transportation: every banana type ripens differently and has widely varying levels of fragility. In the 1950s, when the &#8220;original&#8221; commercial banana, the Gros Michel, was going functionally extinct, Dole came up with the idea of bagging and boxing a potential replacement fruit &#8211; the Cavendish &#8211; in order to allow it to survive the long trip from the tropics to our stores. The plan worked, and the banana industry was saved. Today, as disease ravages the global Cavendish crop, packing and shipping technologies are once again becoming key to replacing the commercial fruit. At the same time, bananas compete more and more with candy and other junk food at convenience stores, where branding and presentation beyond an oval sticker might be a plus (at least in terms of marketing.) Del Monte and 7-Eleven seem to believe just that and have begun, at about 30 stores near the convenience store giant&#8217;s Dallas headquarters, a small retail test of bagged and branded bananas. The packaging is designed to extend the shelf-life of the fruit from two to five days. (I&#8217;m [...]]]></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>Online Course in Banana Quarantine Techniques</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/35#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/35#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:28:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/online-course-in-banana-quarantine-techniques/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Philippine Lacatan banana tree at market &#8211; from the extensive and fascinating Market Manilla website. The Lacatan is the Philippine&#8217;s &#8220;comfort food&#8221; banana, and one of the world&#8217;s most delicious. One of the most frustrating elements of fighting banana disease (or any disease) is that quarantine actually works &#8211; but only in theory. For over a century, attempts to isolate infected bananas from healthy ones have been attempted, and failed. These efforts have, in fact, generally made things worse, because they&#8217;ve often been accompanied by denial on the part of banana producers that the problem needs to be attacked on other levels, as well (or denial that quarantine is mostly ineffective.) But clean farming can make a difference: it can boost crop yields, and slow the spread of disease &#8211; crucially important to subsistence farmers, for whom even cutting a percentage of loss can be lifesaving. And there have been considerable successes in some recent quarantine programs. Pakistani officials are now offering a pilot program in managing banana diseases that&#8217;s different from traditional efforts, which have usually involved in the field training. This one is all-electronic. In my book, I describe how ambitious field programs in Pakistan failed in the [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Help Flooded Ecuadorian Banana Farmers</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/87#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/87#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2008 18:04:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/help-flooded-ecuadorian-banana-farmers/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Images from Oke&#8217;s Flickr photostream. To assist washed-out Ecuadorean banana farmers, fair-trade importer Oke is taking donations to buy a Bobcat earth-mover. It&#8217;s a worthy cause. Read about it here. More on fair trade, Ecuador&#8217;s floods, and rising banana prices here, here, here, and especially here.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Doomsday Vaults and Black Box bananas</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/102#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/102#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:02:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/doomsday-vaults-and-black-box-bananas/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The &#8220;Fort Knox of Food.&#8221; From the International Herald Tribune. The recent publicity about the opening of the &#8220;Global Seed Vault&#8221; in Longyearbyen, Norway, has prompted some questions about whether or not bananas are included. The vault is 500 meters deep, buried under a snow-capped mountain, and is filled with over a hundred million (!!!) different kinds seeds, all as a hedge against the predicted destruction to plant life global warming may be about to wreak. The project was described as a &#8220;backup hard drive&#8221; for agriculture by the New York Times (story). But bananas aren&#8217;t included. Why? Simple: bananas don&#8217;t have seeds. And banana plantlets &#8211; the primary means of storing genetic material for the fruit &#8211; are an impossible fit for the Norwegian project, which can only store the so-called &#8220;orthodox&#8221; seeds &#8211; the kind that can be preserved dry. Storing bananas, as a recent press release from Bioversity International noted, need &#8220;human intervention. That&#8217;s always been the story with bananas. We brought them from the forest thousands of years ago, and we&#8217;ve carried them around the world. They aren&#8217;t just a product of human enterprise &#8211; they&#8217;re a companion to humanity. Liquid nitrogen keeps the banana materials [...]]]></description>
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		<title>More great banana art from Gonzalo Fuenmayor</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/103#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/103#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:02:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/more-great-banana-art-from-gonzalo-fuenmayor/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Cuando las Miradas no Alcanzan,&#8221; 47&#215;47&#8243;, oil on canvas, 2005 &#8220;Unaited gui Stand,&#8221; 92 x 44 inches, oil on canvas, 2003* Gonzalo is an artist from Colombia, site of some of the must brutal violence in the sad history of the Banana Republics. His grandfather worked for United Fruit (Chiquita), and tried &#8211; Gonzolo told me in an email &#8211; to paint a more sympathetic picture of the banana giant, which was responsible for the massacre of at least 1,000 banana workers during a strike in 1929 (the bloodshed was fictionalized by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in &#8220;100 Years of Solitude.&#8221; The conflict between differing versions of the story &#8211; and Gonzalo&#8217;s own soul-searching about the relationship between the fruit, his own life, his culture, and his family give his work a high level of intensity (which is enhanced by the size of his canvases &#8211; some bigger than eight feet across.) I love these paintings. The feel both documentary and impressionistic, all at once. &#8220;A Prueba de Eternidades,&#8221; 50 x 50&#8243;, oil on canvas, 2007 &#8220;Camouflage of Frustration,&#8221; 42 x 50&#8243;, charcoal/paper, 2004 *This title, &#8220;United gui Stand,&#8221; is a pun on both the name &#8220;United Fruit&#8221; and the Colombian [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Will a weep-less onion lead to slip-less bananas?</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/108#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/108#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:32:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/will-a-weep-less-onion-lead-to-slip-less-bananas/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;d cry, too. Researchers in New Zealand and Japan have engineered what they describe as a &#8220;tear-free&#8221; onion, according to a report from the AFP wire service. The happy onion was developed by the Crop and Food Research institute. The lead scientist on the project, Colin Eady, described how it was done: &#8220;We previously thought the tearing agent was produced spontaneously by cutting onions, but [a Japanese research team] proved it was controlled by an enzyme,&#8221; he told AFP from his home outside Christchurch. &#8220;Here in New Zealand we had the ability to insert DNA into onions, using gene-silencing technology developed by Australian scientists. The technology creates a sequence that switches off the tear-inducing gene in the onion so it doesn&#8217;t produce the enzyme. So when you slice the vegetable, it doesn&#8217;t produce tears.&#8221; (read the rest of the AFP article on Yahoo! news) Genetic modification isn&#8217;t all that scary if you really think about it. And though nothing may be more valuable than the ability to make tears cease to flow, for bananas &#8211; aside from developing one that&#8217;s friendlier to pedestrians &#8211; the mission is more conventional: strengthen the fruit so that it will grow better, resist disease, [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>More on monkeys and bananas</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/112#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/112#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:33:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/more-on-monkeys-and-bananas/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My friend Tim lived in Costa Rica for almost five years. He confirms not just that our simian relatives eat bananas, but also how they eat them: &#8220;As I remember, they ate them upside down. Used their teeth to pull apart the peel. Bigger monkeys would bite chunks off or/and the smaller monkeys would break off chunks with both hands and sit and nibble or chomp away at the prized package in their hands. Actually it would be cool to get a small video of this on your site. Err&#8230;dont mean to tell you what ot do, I just remember it being real cute to watch.&#8221; Your wish is my command, amigo: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGhi2ZXEALQ&#038;rel=1] Tim, by the way, owns a really cool bike shop in Platteville, Wisconsin.]]></description>
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		<title>This book (might one day) be printed on banana paper</title>
		<link>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/116#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.bigparadela.com/wordpress/archives/116#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:36:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bananas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Australia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banana News]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://dankoeppel.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/this-book-might-one-day-be-printed-on-banana-paper/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Note: This entry originally appeared on the Penguin authors&#8217; blog, which I contributed to this week. If you&#8217;ve bought my book, then you know that the subject &#8211; saving the banana from a disease that currently threatens it &#8211; has, as its background, the notion of monoculture: relying on a single crop, rather than diverse ones, leaving that crop open to all-in-one-blow disasters. One way to expand bananas beyond the modern monoculture would be to recognize that the fruit is usable for other products. One of the most intriguing of these is paper. The banana &#8220;tree&#8221; isn&#8217;t a tree at all &#8211; it is a giant herb. That means a lot of things (for example, a banana plant has no bark), but for the sake of making paper, the big advantage is this: a banana plant grows like crazy. A productive plantation can see tiny stems reach as high as twenty feet in a single year. Each &#8220;tree&#8221; produces one bunch &#8211; about 150 individual bananas &#8211; of fruit per year; it then gives &#8220;birth&#8221; to another tree. The process can continue virtually forever. The big question has been what to do with those giant trees, which quickly fall over [...]]]></description>
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