Today we visited EARTH's banana plantation and processing plant. Fernando was our guide.
The blue bags protect the bananas & contain insect repellent. It takes nine months for a banana plant to produce a bunch of bananas. They only produce one bunch in a lifetime, then the tree has to be chopped down. The farm is 500 acres. There is no seed & no pollination. Each plant produces a separate plant on its own to continue the line. Banana paper is made from the stem of the plant. Stalks come from the banana fields w/ color coded ribbons which let the workers knew which field the bananas came from. Once they arrive at the processing plant via the banana train(!)
the ends are quickly removed by women moving so fast it looks as if a shower of dust is falling from the plants. They are then separated from the stalk and washed in a vat.
They come out of the other side of the vat, and are put on a conveyor belt, where another blur of motion in the shape of a female puts product stickers on them. It has to be mind- numbing work. They are then boxed and shipped throughout the Americas, a process that can take two weeks because they have to be inspected again once they reach their destination country. If one bunch is bad, the entire shipment can be rejected.
The blue bags protect the bananas & contain insect repellent. It takes nine months for a banana plant to produce a bunch of bananas. They only produce one bunch in a lifetime, then the tree has to be chopped down. The farm is 500 acres. There is no seed & no pollination. Each plant produces a separate plant on its own to continue the line. Banana paper is made from the stem of the plant. Stalks come from the banana fields w/ color coded ribbons which let the workers knew which field the bananas came from. Once they arrive at the processing plant via the banana train(!)
the ends are quickly removed by women moving so fast it looks as if a shower of dust is falling from the plants. They are then separated from the stalk and washed in a vat. 
They come out of the other side of the vat, and are put on a conveyor belt, where another blur of motion in the shape of a female puts product stickers on them. It has to be mind- numbing work. They are then boxed and shipped throughout the Americas, a process that can take two weeks because they have to be inspected again once they reach their destination country. If one bunch is bad, the entire shipment can be rejected.
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