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Food Production at a Local Scale

Banana Production in the Philippines

A FARM STUDY

Bananas have been grown for a very long time throughout the Philippines either for consumption by farmers or for sale in local markets. Yet bananas were not exported until the arrival of the TNCs in the late 1960s. This followed opening of the Japanese market and the search by United Brands, Castle and Cooke and Del Monte for a new, low-cost source of supply for the Japanese trade.

In common with many other Filipino landowners and business people, one of the two richest families in the country decided to establish a banana plantation in 1970. Although these owners lived in Manila, the Philippines capital city, their banana production unit was located 1,000 km away in Mindanao, the second largest of the Philippines islands. Large expanses of fertile, yet undeveloped land, had made this island an agricultural and settlement `frontier' during the twentieth century and large plantations of abaca (hemp), coconuts and coffee had been established. Mindanao now accounts for 95 per cent of Philippine pineapple production and two-thirds of export bananas.

The core of their new banana plantation, called  Lapanday, was a large land-holding of 320 hectares. The family negotiated with Del Monte who provided banana plants, technical knowledge and finance to establish the plantation and contracted to purchase all fruit which met their international market standards. They insisted, however, that production would only be profitable at a scale of at least 500 hectares. Hence, the Lapanday group pressured neighbouring landowners to lease adjoining land for 25 years. The owners were mostly professional people from Davao City but the land was being used by tenant farmers for subsistence food production and small-scale cash cropping. These tenants were evicted with no compensation. Some were given small plots of land to farm further away from Davao, while others were hired as labourers on the new banana plantation.

The figure above shows this plantation within its local, national and global context. Each aspect plays an important part in understanding how this production unit was established and changes over time.

Lapanday was one of a number of plantations established in Southeastern Mindanao during the 1970s to grow bananas for export. The table below summarises banana export plantations established or contracted to the TNCs in Mindanao by 1975 while the map shows their regional distribution.

Del Monte controlled the largest area with eight plantations, while Castle and Cooke (Dole) established a large plantation and contracted numerous small growers. United Brands (Chiquita) established a huge plantation, TADECO, on land owned by a penal colony and leased from the Government. The prison's convicts provided up to one-quarter of the labour force. Finally, a Japanese consortium established a large new plantation, the largest of a group of independent growers in the region.

Location of banana plantations in Southeastern Mindanao
(Source: provided by Peter Krinks, Macquarie University)

Banana export plantations in Mindanao.