Most banana plantations are an environmental nightmare. The trees are showered with chemicals for pest and weed control and they often grow in monocultures on land where biologically diverse rainforests once stood, mostly in Central and South America.

In Costa Rica, one university, the EARTH University, is taking a lead on earth-friendly banana research and production. Though not completely organic by U.S. standards, EARTH supplies exclusively to the Whole Foods Market chain in the U.S. and U.K. These "green" bananas make up a small percentage of the 2 million tons exported from the country each year, but the sales are hugely important to EARTH, providing 7 percent of its revenue, which pays the tuition of many students who simply can't afford to enroll without assistance.

Bananas aren't the only product leaving the university's plantation. More conventional banana plantations are using EARTH's sustainable practices. As many as 40 percent of production areas in Central and South America and even Asia have adopted techniques developed at the university.

One of these methods -- tying plastic bags around vulnerable budding bananas -- protects the fruit from unwanted pests without overly relying on pesticides. When plastic bags started turning up in waterways, EARTH created a recycling program that even one of the largest banana producers with a shady environmental and social justice record, the Dole Food Company, participates in (recycling about 1,900 tons of plastic each year).

EARTH's goal is to continue finding alternatives to chemicals that wreak havoc on plantation watersheds as well as farmworkers, who suffer sterility and cancer on account of exposure to toxic pesticides. For example, the university is trying to develop biological controls for a ruthless airborne fungus, black sigatoka, that is currently only controlled by chemical fungicides.

Michael Besancon, president of the Southern Pacific division of Whole Foods, hopes that sustainability in banana production will extend to good wages and working conditions for farmers, standards already ensured through some fair trade certifications.

Of course, true sustainability also includes a small carbon footprint, something U.S.-bound bananas may never have. Dole aims to produce a carbon-neutral supply chain for the bananas it grows in Costa Rica (it recently signed an agreement with the Costa Rican governement). But given Dole's not-so-lovely history (opens PDF), be cautious of applauding just yet. This company has a long way to go to repair its environmental and workers' rights record.

If you can't live without bananas, do some homework, and choose labels that represent companies with more "green" a-peel.

Source: National Geographic

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