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Costa Rica's
Pineapple Country Is No Piña Colada
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Costa Rica's
Pineapple Country Is No Piña Colada
By Alex Leff | GLOBAL POST
Every other day, a truck travels down the
dusty road flanked by palm trees outside
Hilma Duartes' home in the heart of
pineapple country here, carrying cisterns of
clean drinking water.
In the past, Duartes — like 82 percent of
all Costa Ricans — drank clean water from
the sink. But now, she said, "we only use
the tap for cleaning the house and washing
clothes.” The change, she said, is the
result of water pollution that emerged with
the booming pineapple business in her
community of Milano more than five years
ago.
“Now if you leave it in a container, the
next day there’s a milky residue,” she said
of the water from the kitchen sink in her
modest house.
Although sweet and delicious, pineapples are
causing a great deal of bitterness in
Duartes' community, on Costa Rica’s
Caribbean slope in the province of Limon.
The total amount of land used for pineapple
production here and in other parts of the
country has grown from 12,500 hectares to as
much as 50,000 hectares (more than 120,000
acres) in less than a decade. The surge has
made Costa Rica the world’s largest
pineapple exporter, according to the
Agricultural Ministry.
But the title has come at a high cost,
according to those residing near the crop.
Studies have detected low levels of
contamination in the water near pineapple
farms, and local residents fear that the
farms continue to shed harmful agrochemicals
into the rivers and groundwater, causing
outbreaks of health problems ranging from
basic skin rashes to asthma and
miscarriages.
The health fears persist in spite of a green
light from the health authorities to drink
the water. “The level of water contamination
(in Siquirres) is very minimal,” Health
Minister Maria Luisa Avila told GlobalPost.
“The residents continue drinking from the
cisterns because they don’t want to change
over to tap water, but I insist, there is no
health risk,” she said.
Agricultural officials and pineapple sector
leaders claim there are rabble rousers at
work, who are exaggerating the health
problems and stoking local fears.
“In that area there are very radical groups
of environmentalists and syndicalists who
are left over from the banana conflicts of
many years ago,” said Sergio Porras, leader
of the Agricultural Ministry’s pineapple
division, referring to union struggles of
the 1930s and 40s. Syndicalism is a movement
that promotes shifting production power to
workers' unions.
Gerardina Lopez, a leading member of the
Syndicalist Association of the Caribbean,
pointed to a more recent conflict in the
region from 1969 to 1979, during which
banana corporations such as the United Fruit
Company were responsible for heavy
contamination, "which was harmful for
workers and their families," she said.
Porras acknowledged that many of the
pineapple growers in the country were at one
time banana farmers. But, he added, he
believes the “radicals” want pineapple farms
gone entirely, which would be disastrous for
the 30,000 people directly employed by the
farms, and the estimated 100,000 whose jobs
are related to the prized fruit.
Meanwhile, amid the uncertainty and growing
pressure from local groups, regional
officials have taken a hard line against
pineapple companies.
In early March, the Municipality of
Siquirres issued a moratorium on expanding
pineapple farms in the region. The ban came
on the heels of a police raid on the offices
of two fruit companies — Hacienda Ojo de
Agua and Frutex — which are believed to be
using chemicals such as bromacil and diuron
on their crops, which were then allegedly
washing off into Siquirres streams and
groundwater.
Costa Rica has no legal guidelines on such
chemicals. Nevertheless, the police are
trying to learn more about what they believe
could be potentially harmful pineapple
practices.
“The raids gathered documents and evidence
that prove the use of bromacil,” according
to police investigator William Jimenez,
although he said a complete analysis will
not be available until later this month. On
the water issue, he said “it’s totally
recommendable” for residents to continue to
avoid drinking water from the tap. “I’m an
investigator, but I’m also bothered by this
issue (personally) because I use that water
too,” he added.
Some researchers are grateful for the
moratorium, as it may offer a grace period
during which deeper investigations can
occur. “Currently there’s no complete
panorama” of the impact of pineapples in
Costa Rica, said Clemens Ruepert, of the
National University’s Regional Institute of
Toxic Substance Studies. “The residents are
very concerned, and that’s a real issue. If
it isn’t investigated, it’ll continue to be
nothing more than hearsay. This requires
further scientific investigation.”
Marco Retana, a biology professor at
University of Costa Rica, believes massive
pineapple expansion has taken a grave toll
on the environment.
“There are no grasses around them. These are
pineapples on totally exposed land. This
causes serious erosion problems. After land
is used for growing pineapples, it can
hardly have any other function,” Retana
said.
Locals say they are encountering another
problem with the pineapples: a blood-sucking
insect farmers call the mosca paletera, or
“leg fly,” probably akin to an insect known
in North America as a stable fly.
“When the pineapple is cut off, the stalk is
left there to rot. Then the fly comes along,
developing all of its larval cycles there,
and then attacks the cattle,” Retana
explained.
Nelson Esquivel, 70, said he noticed the bug
problem before selling his cattle farm four
years ago to a pineapple company. “The fly
sucks the cow’s blood (and) leaves welts all
over,” he said. TV channel 7 recently
reported that dairy cattle farms are losing
considerable amounts of milk production due
to the mosca.
But other neighbors remain most bothered by
the supposed water problem.
“The United States might have a different
level” of agrochemicals permitted in its
water, said Carlos Luis Mejia, 65, a
resident of Milano. “What we want is zero
contamination. That’s what we’re fighting
for.”
-- Alex Leff covers Costa Rica for
GlobalPost, delving into the social and
environmental problems that threaten this
small nation's peaceful and eco-friendly
balance. Leff is the online editor at the
Tico Times. |
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