May 27, 2005

Plight of the Banañeros : Nemagon (Dibromo-3-Chloropropane), was a nasty chemical produced by several companies in the U.S. for fumigating crops affected by nematodes. First introduced in 1954, it wasn't until 1985 that it's use was "fully-banned," and mid-90's that usage ceased all together. To this day, individuals exposed to it - and their offspring - suffer the many serious side-effects.

Unsurprising, most of those affected were the poor, hard-working laborers of banana plantations in South America, especially those in Nicaragua. Also affected, plant workers in the good 'ol US of A where teh nasty stuff was manufactured. [some links in Spanish, good images however] Sorry for all the links, but it's just the tip of the iceberg

posted by sugarmilktea 19 years ago
  • Christ that's fucking depressing.
  • That's not to say it's a bad post, far from it, but christ that makes me want to flail about.
  • It was all tied into the CIA United Fruit Guatemala Banana Scandal
  • Well, tis Friday... everyone's always posting Friday Fun! crap, so I hesitated, but then said what the fuck... Having never heard of this until recently, it's quite disturbing to say the least. Yes, depressing...
  • The scientist quoted in the article: "From what I hear, they could use a little birth control down there." Something tells me he's going to end up in hell. Damn. Bananas are already so genetically vulnerable to fungus that they're doused in chemicals just to keep them from molding before they grow. People have spent millions trying to find a viable banana seed to get a new line of plants. Unfortunately for people who like bananas, like many of our hybrid crops, bananas are sterile, producing no viable seeds, and are instead grown from cuttings. The variety of banana we use today is different from the first commercially grown banana, which isn't possible to grow any more because it was wiped out by a different banana fungus. Most crops you buy at the store are like this. Sterile hybrids are attractive to farming corporations because it's impossible for the consumer to buy a fruit or veggie, keep some seeds, and then grow their own rather than buy from the store. Keeps your investents secure - nobody's going to be able to hijack your carefully bred super-apple and sell it with their own brand name to compete with you, for example. Use the banana as a lesson, folks. Fruits and veggies that can't be grown from seeds are not evolving. The fungi, bacteria, viruses, and critters who compete with us for those fruits and veggies are evolving. We need to either go back to farming something besides sterile hybrids or resign ourselves to eating food that has been washed in horrible chemicals since day 1.
  • monkeyfilter: eating food that has been washed in horrible chemicals since day 1
  • They do "gas" all bananas that you buy at the grocery store. I remember reading a few years ago that bananas were the perfect food to dose the local populations(I forgot what drug they were using,birth control ,or something)because of the soft exterior a syringe could be used to introduce the drug.
  • clf: You're right that there are significant issues around the genetics of hybrid plants. However, the banana has been a hybrid plant propagated from cuttings for 10,000 years. It is not purely an invention of modern man.
  • Hate to sound like some kind of tree-hugging hippie... but yes, the whole chemical soup all of the pristine, picture-perfect looking produce and fruit (that got ripe in the truck that brought it from some far away place weeks ago) in our supermarkets is really gonna do us in the long run. Not to say anything about the taste. Past week got the pleasure of cooking some organic-compost, home-farmed tomatos and eggs (thanks, Mom!) and even my nonexistant skills and questionable culinary tastes had to appreciate the difference: ripe, plump, juicy instead of the usual white in the inside, frozen-tasting, dry ones I usually get. Home farming... sheez, it's gonna be quite a chore, but as industrial food production keeps coming up with nasty surprises, and as a training for any 'event' that might curtail food distributiuon and such, guess we'll all have to explore this, the sooner the better.
  • Hello McFly! Everythings beeping toxic, even the roads we drive on. ashphalt + rain = carcinigins in the water table. Farmers on well water are getting healthy doses of cancer right out of their taps! Plastic, also quite possibly leaches carcinigins into watever product it contains, plastic water bottles may be raising your chances of winnning the great lottery, which is death. The human animal originally evolved to life expectancy rate of 35 or 40, anything past that is a bonus. So smoke your Cohibas, drive your hemis, and look forward to the setting sun. (future of farming is hydroponic hi-rises, condos designed just for the expressed purpose of manufacturing food(composting greenhouse type thing)) Like my father always said, too much of anything will give you cancer. Cheers
  • Funny how we've moved to thinking about these poor people to thinking about ourselves. Damn chemical companies should pay through the ass for this kind of stuff.
  • These afflicted people are not even out for the money, which makes it even more disgusting when I ponder the subject further. I belive it to be a fairly common tragedy (from my perspective, living in the US) - big business from highly industrialized nations knowingly subjecting those less fortunate and educated to all types of malformed business activities - in the name of $$. Gee, do we really care that a small community in Nicaragua of all places is being exposed to toxins which have unknown effects on their health and well-being? Hell, look at our profit margins... Don't mention anything unless asked...
  • Gee, do we really care that a small community in Nicaragua of all places is being exposed to toxins which have unknown effects on their health and well-being? Hell, look at our profit margins... Don't mention anything unless asked... I'm not an apologist for Big Chemical even though I work in that industry. I will say that in my experience it seems that alot of companies really didn't understand the long term health and enviromental implications of the stuff they made in the 50s. It was a boom time for chemical R&D and everything they discovered was the next wonder chemical that would make like safer and easier. Hence "Better Living Through Chemistry". We're still finding out that some of these chemicals that we thought were harmless may not be (like Teflon)...who knows what we'll know in 50 years?
  • I agree to an extent, however research they did on this particular chemical back in the 50's did "raise some eyebrows." It's something that gets repeated over and over in numerous industries - putting something out there before knowing the full-extent of effects it may have on humans/environment, etc. etc., usually overlooked as a result of financial motives. I've seen it first-hand from the company side, and from the affected side...
  • Given the success of big corporate america, I don't think they have a chance. And nor do we.