Bananas

Bananas, thought to be a native plant of tropical Asia, was introduced into the Caribbean and then to Central America and Costa Rica sometime after the Spanish invasion.

Costa Rica’s banana industry, recently ousted by tourism as the country’s number one foreign currency earning industry, continues to expand to meet the demand of a growing international market. In 1992, 32,000 hectares were planted with bananas, a 50% increase from 1985. Today the growth continues. Most growth is concentrated in the Atlantic lowlands.

Bananas have been part of the Caribbean landscape since 1870, when American entrepreneur Minor Keith shipped his first fruit stems to New Orleans. In 1899, his Tropical Trading and Transport Co. Merged with the Boston Fruit Co. to form the United Fruit Co., which soon became a dominant force of the political economies of the "banana republics ". By the 1920s, much of the jungle south of Puerto Limon had been transformed into a vast expanse of bananas.