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- <text id=90TT1508>
- <title>
- June 11, 1990: Business Notes:Agriculture
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- June 11, 1990 Scott Turow:Making Crime Pay
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 49
- Business Notes
- AGRICULTURE
- The Banana Rebellion
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> The struggle has all the classic images of a revolution:
- machete-wielding peasants, gun-toting men in uniform, alleged
- acts of sabotage. But the rebellion brewing in Honduras has an
- unusual rallying cry: Bananas! For nearly a century, U.S. giant
- Chiquita Brands International (formerly United Fruit) has
- enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the republic's banana exports.
- But many growers today want to sell their produce to Fyffes
- Group, a British fruit company offering $4.40 a box, vs.
- Chiquita's estimated $3.
- </p>
- <p> The U.S. company insists that growers are legally bound to
- sell to it until 1992. As a result, Fyffes' port shipments have
- been blocked by armed guards. Campesinos armed only with farm
- implements have confronted them, but no injuries have been
- reported so far. Last month a train packed with Fyffes bananas
- was derailed in northern Honduras when it hit what police said
- was a deliberate obstruction. The contractual dispute is
- working its way through the Honduran courts.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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