Martin Henry, Contributor

A banana farmer tends this near-mature bunch of bananas. Jamaica Producers has recently stopped producing bananas for export. - File

IN THE wake of Tropical Storm Gustav, which devastated their estates just a year after Hurricane Dean did the same, Jamaica Producers (JP) has taken what must have been a very painful decision to stop producing bananas for export. It is a sad departure from the company's reason for being.

The Jamaica Banana Producers' Association (JBPA) was formed in 1925 specifically to challenge the big international fruit companies, then operating here, in the export of bananas. I stumbled upon the story as I researched the history of telegraphy in Jamaica a few years ago. The United Fruit Company (UFCo) was not only in its hey day, the largest banana trading company, but a major user of telegraphic services and an important innovator in wireless telegraphy and radio communication. It has morphed into the modern Chiquita.

Largest exporter

The export of bananas as a tropical exotic fruit into temperate markets began from Jamaica. In 1870, Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker, on a shipping trip to Port Antonio, bought 160 bunches of bananas for a shilling per bunch. Baker raced his cargo to Jersey City in 11 days of sailing where he sold the bananas for $2 for each bunch and went on to form banana trading companies.

By the time the JBPA was formed with 20,000 members, Jamaica was the largest exporter of the green gold in the world. Yes, that's right. But the trade was controlled by the big transnational companies. The brilliant young lawyer, Norman Manley, who was recruited to lead the drafting of the JBPA constitution, wrote in his incomplete autobiography that, "in effect ... the United Fruit Company and Elders & Fyffes controlled the position in Jamaica. And the small Jamaica grower paid for it. His prices varied with United Fruit Co interests, and there was no guarantee that he could sell at all when his fruit was ready".

The brave

As Manley put it, "It was in these circumstances that a few brave and far-sighted men began to believe that it was possible to plan for a cooperative big enough to own their own ships, and strong enough to force the United Fruit Co to bargain with them. And they did just that. Among the men named in Manley's autobiographical sketch were C.E. Johnston, the grandfather of current JP Chairman Charles Johnston, and Sir Arthur Frarquharson, who would become the benefactor of the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs, which has recently had a rebirth. Its Chairman, Frank Phipps, and Secretary, Ken Jones, have been actively engaging public affairs mostly on human-rights issues.

Not named in Manley's autobiography, but an influential player in his old age in the early stages of the birth of the Jamaica Banana Producers Association was Sir John Pringle, the founding patriarch of the Pringle's clan in Jamaica. This part of the story I picked up from researching the history of social action and community development in Walkerswood, St Ann, for Walkerswood Caribbean Foods.

Instrumental player

John Pringle had migrated to Jamaica in the early 1870s as a young doctor from the outer Hebrides in Scotland in search of opportunity in the colonies. He married Amy Levy, who was a daughter of the custos of St Catherine, Isaac Levy. The same Levy family of Jamaica Broilers. Pringle became one of the largest landowners in Jamaica with several estates across the island, a member of the Legislative Council, and an important banana man. He was named by Marcus Garvey as one of the white Jamaicans who assisted him financially in establishing the United Negro Improvement Association.

The JBPA co-op faced two problems, as Norman Manley recalled, neither of which was ever solved. And one of those problems 83 years later has finally ended the growing of bananas for export by the successor organisation. One problem was keeping co-op members faithful to the organisation when the powerful UFCo could bid up prices to obtain adequate supplies in times of scarcity, and handling gluts when the UFCo price to growers was cut. The other problem, the one which has finally defeated JP as a producer of export bananas, was, in Norman Manley's words, "What did the co-op do when by reason of hurricane Jamaica's production could not supply the English market and our share of it was short of supplies?"

Manley's banana work with the Jamaica Banana Producers' Association led to Jamaica Welfare Ltd; Jamaica Welfare led to the People's National Party; the PNP led to internal self-government, and then Independence. A little-known chain reaction in our history.