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Banana production in Ecuador is important to the national economy. It ranks among the world's top producers of bananas, ranked 5th with an annual production of 8 million tonnes (6% of world production) as of 2011. The country exports more than 4 million tonnes annually. The crop is mostly grown on private plantations under the control of national and international companies such as Chiquita, Del Monte, Dole, and Noboa. However, the European Union, is insistent on signing a trade deal which Ecuador has so far refused to sign. This has created fear among the farming community in Ecuador for their livelihoods. ==History== Production of bananas began in Ecuador in 1910. However, the industry did not experience a boom until 1948, when the government of President Galo Plaza began issuing agricultural credits, tariffs, building ports and a highway on the coast, and making efforts towards pest control. At its peak in the mid-1950s, Ecuador was the largest banana producer in the world. In 1954, five companies including Standard Fruit, United Fruit, and Noboa handled 80 percent of Ecuador's banana exports. A decade later, there were 3,000 banana farms in the country, each averaging approximately 158 acres in size. As of 1960, bananas exported from Ecuador accounted for 25 percent of the world's production, out-producing all of the Central American countries.〔 In the late 1950s, a fungal disease called Panama disease caused huge losses to the banana crop. During the 1960s agrarian reform caused fragmentation of land holdings and multinational companies closed down due to labour trouble. Large landholders lost the advantage and as a result very large numbers of smaller non union plantations came to be established under local producers. During this period Central American countries introduced a new variety known as Cavendish bananas, which was a setback to Ecuador as its banana production was affected. However, Dole ensured that Ecuador's export share in the world market did not fall below 15%.〔 In 1974, Ecuador became a member of the Union of Banana Exporting Countries in an attempt to bargain for better prices. The UEB proposal of an export tax did not succeed in Ecuador, however. In 1975 the UEB collapsed after what became known as "bananagate", bribery of the banana trade monopoly consisting of the three US companies United Fruit), Standard Fruit, and the Del Monte Corporation. Eventually, the ''Black sigatoka'', a banana disease destroying much of banana production in Central American countries and Colombia, as well as a levy of export tax, and political unrest in Central America, came to Ecuador's advantage. the Standard Fruit Company and Del Monte Fresh Produce Company decided to make Ecuador the primary supplier of bananas in the 1970s. Some 147,909 hectares were dedicated to production, 99 percent of which were in the three provinces of Oro, Guayas, and Los Ríos in the lowlands of the Pacific coast, with a tropical climate and rich soil conditions.〔 During the 1980s and 1990s in Ecuador, the economic policy of foreign trade was modified to comply to the international trade regime. This boosted banana exports, accounting for 21.1 per cent of total exports and 64.7 per cent of all agricultural exports during the decade of the 1990s. In 1998, there were 4,941 banana planters employing a work force of 98,000. In 1999 Dole established a new loading terminal at Bananapuerto in 1999. In 2003 the Food and Agriculture Organization reported that the country's banana workers received lower wages than banana workers in all other Latin American banana-exporting nations. A study conducted three years earlier stated that the country's banana worker's average monthly wage was US$56. In 2012, Ecuador reported losses of $600 million due to the Black sigatoka fungus, with 40% (85,000 hectares) of the country's banana plantations affected by it. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Banana production in Ecuador」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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