BY WYATT CONSTANTINE
Wyatt Constantine is a research coordinator and PhD candidate at the Department of African Studies of Leipzig University.
Towards a renaissance of the banana sector?
In 2014, a New York Times article by Ismail Kushkush described the modest but increasing growth of the Somali banana trade, with exports resuming after a long pause. [i] Once an important regional trade player until the Somali civil war in 1991, the banana export business had more or less collapsed in the years following the outbreak of conflict. Though critical parts of infrastructure, such as draining and irrigation remained largely in a sorry state, the article struck a hopeful tone, noting the quality for which Somali bananas are celebrated and the appearance of Somali growers at a trade show in Dubai. Kushkush seemed to offer a cautious note of hope for a country that is treated as the epitome of a “failed state” in much development literature. A 2020 investment guide from the Somali ministry of Agriculture and irrigation, supported by USAID funded GEEL project (Growth, Enterprise, Employment, and Livelihoods), seeking “to revitalize Somali banana sector and spur private sector investment in the country,” strikes a similarly optimistic note, stating that “commercial banana production is highly profitable and can significantly contribute to economic growth.”[ii]
With the return of the banana export business to Somalia, this article takes a critical look at the history of banana production in Somalia, from its origins as a colonial project of fascist Italy, its tumultuous performance under the rule of Siad Barre, and its current burgeoning renaissance. While I do not argue that the banana trade has not proven itself at times profitable or has created jobs, I nonetheless claim it is very doubtful that a continued reliance on commodity exports for the international market can prove to be part of a resilient or sustainable economic future for Somalia. While the USAID-GEEL project and private sector firms have celebrated banana and export-oriented agriculture as a job creator, the reality is more complicated, and understanding the sectors history and Somali relative position in the global economy is necessary for a more nuanced analysis of the trade and the implications of increased commodity production for export. [iii]
In 1990 before the outbreak of war, bananas earned an estimated 30 percent of export earnings, and according to work by Webersik “it is estimated that some 10,000 people were employed in banana production and related activities.”[iv] The war resulted in an export collapse, but the industry would see a brief revival in the late 1990s with the entrance of Dole into southern Somalia. This led to intense competition between the Dole subsidiary and the Italian firm de Nadai, later turning into an open conflict between the two companies’ local subsidiaries, which became known as the “banana wars.” Since then, a small but growing export business has returned, with shipments to Saudi Arabia resuming in 2019.[v] This article asks, considering the important role banana exports played in 20th century Somalia, how is it that the sector came to exist? What was the basis for its economic success? How does it fit into wider debates on African integration into the global economy and can it become a part of a sustainable future?
Colonial continuities: The historical evolution of banana exports in Somalia
Banana agriculture originated in Somalia in the 1920s as a project of the Italian fascists towards a “vallorazione”[vi] of the colonized territory. The Italian colonial governments granted massive landholdings to Italian colonists, particularly in the fertile river valley between the Juba and Shabelle rivers. This area remains the principal location of banana plantation agriculture and was the site of many of the initial Aziendas of the Italian colonial project.
The profitability and success of the Somali banana trade led to the creation of the state monopoly company Regia azienda monopolio banana (Royal banana monopoly) in 1935, which procured a fleet of refrigerated banana boats for trade back to Europe, where Somali bananas enjoyed privileged access to the Italian market.[vii] Though fertile land existed and found by willing colonists, it should be remembered that the principal problem for the colonial agricultural project in Somalia was acquiring sufficient labor - a problem that vexed many other colonial governments., Most Somalis in the fertile lands of the south were generally engaged in either pastoralism or were small scale farming for themselves and were generally unwilling to engage in wage labor.[viii] To that end, De Vecchi oversaw the imposition of a hut tax and even a bachelor tax, forcing Somalis to engage in wage labor, spreading forced labor practices and forced movement throughout the territory.
Under the scientific socialist economic regime of Siad Barre, who seized power in a coup in 1969, the banana plantations were nationalized and placed under the control of the National Banana Board. While Barres regime utilized revolutionary rhetoric to legitimize itself, Samatar has noted that “bonded and migrant laborers worked under conditions little different from those prevailing under the previous civilian and military regimes”.[ix] One major change that did occur in the socialist era was a marked decrease in output which began around 1973, with a combination of declining commodity prices, cost of inputs, and poor management being the likely culprits. This trend continued until the beginning of the debt crises in the 1980s that forced most of Africa, including Somalia, into IMF-World Bank mandated Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP). This resulted in the liberalization of the trade and partial privatization of the National Banana Board, with the Italian firm De Nadai engaging in a public-private partnership with the state of Somalia. Banana production showed a general upward trend, aided by access to credit and heavy machinery from the de Nadai investment. This growth in output would continue until the outbreak of the civil war. We should be cautious, however, in assigning too much praise to liberalization or privatization policies, or to the return of the export trade in modern Somalia.
Commodity production and terms of trade
Several factors that have helped to make banana production profitable historically, as well as today, cannot be considered sustainable, moral, or resilient. These include poverty wages and child labor in critical steps of production and the supply chain, the volatile and generally decreasing returns associated with primary commodity production, and the unsustainable use of chemical inputs needed for successful large scale banana production. During the colonial period the sector enjoyed privileged access to Italian and other European markets, and a certain amount of duty-free exports based on the Lome convention continued until the 1993 Common market organization on Bananas (CMO) reforms. Though Somalia benefitted somewhat from the duty free quotas given to ACP countries under the CMO reforms, arbitration over tariffs and import quotas through the WTO from non-ACP banana exporters, especially from Latin America, has meant that the EU single market has become increasingly liberalized and competitive, while at the same time “The traditional ACP exporters are almost totally reliant on the EU market.”[xi]
Just as in the colonial era of Azienda production, cheap labor has been a critical part of the profitability of the banana trade. Samatars’ study of the Shabelle river valley banana plantations observed the use of female child labor, between the ages of 8-15, at critical stages of weeding and harvesting. His research points out that even in the era of SAP mandated liberalization “75 percent of the earnings from exports were realized by overseas interests….and the profitability of banana production depended on the poverty of child labor.”[xii] Paid at the daily rate of USD 0.40 per day, child laborers’ wages could hardly purchase a single loaf of bread.
Plantation agriculture is also dependent on large amounts of pesticides maintain sufficient crop yield, and bananas are no exception. Research by Bellamy for example emphatically states that “large scale monoculture agricultural systems are heavily dependent on high inputs of synthetic fertilizers to achieve and sustain high yields.”[xiii] This has led to not only horrifying consequences for workers[xiv], but it is also a disaster in the making in terms of global production. Monoculture crops have historically proven to be extremely vulnerable to disease, and it is likely the cavendish banana, the most produced variety, is no exception. The near eradication of the Gros Michel bananas by the infamous Panama disease in the 1950s, which necessitated the move to the Cavendish, could mostly certainly repeat itself in the 21st century. Arguing for the further expansion of monoculture commodities is the opposite of what developed countries should be doing to encourage resilient development. [xv]
Finally, commodity production for export has historically shown diminishing returns and is particularly vulnerable to exogenous shocks. As Deaton has argued “African countries exports of…. commodities are too small a share of world exports to permit individual countries to have much effect on world prices.”[xvi] Even in its best years, Somalian banana production was dwarfed by the “dollar banana” countries of Central and South America, who control the majority of exports.
Away from theories of export driven growth?
For international aid agencies such as USAID and their donors, approach of encouraging “entrepreneurship” and export-oriented commodity production is likely to lead to a dead end. Countries like Somalia are not able to enter a competitive globalized market in such a way to realize effective and sustainable returns. The Somali banana industry has shown its vulnerability and its dependence on child and underpaid female labor. The entrance of foreign investment did not change this paradigm either but rather profited from it. While private firms have celebrated themselves as job creators, the plantation agriculture model has not proven itself capable of providing dignified jobs, safe working conditions, or environmentally conscious practices.
Development agendas could instead focus upon strengthening small scale agriculture for household production, solidifying local supply chains, and encouraging the domestic market growth. Empowering individuals and families at the level of the household and shifting funding and resources there is likely to foster much more resilience and sustainability than large scale monoculture projects or ventures, which depend on far flung international supply chains and rely on a volatile international market. A 2003 FAO study of the Somali banana sector made similar claims stating that “prospects for the re-entry of the Somali banana industry in the international market are not encouraging and the single crop-oriented recovery program would bear a high risk.”[xvii]
The issue of banana production also can be situated in debates of existential and critical importance. Namely, the climate crisis and the viability of existing developmental models, both as theory and as policy practice. It should not be forgotten that one of the most lethal blows dealt to the banana trade in the 1990s was not the onset of civil war but the 1997-98 El Nino floods, which destroyed most of the existing irrigation and plantation infrastructure.
To build a sustainable and resilient future, country should move away from commodity production for export, and development agendas, if they are truly concerned with the long-term stability and human flourishing, should encourage this move. Somalia is deeply dependent on pastoralism and livestock for subsistence and its main source of foreign exchange and remains a net food importer. The ability to diversify subsistence activities through small scale agriculture should be encouraged, and donor money as well as the state could encourage such a move. The FAO also encouraged such a transition, claiming” The diversification option, introducing an expanded and intensified cropping pattern of food crops, oil seed, vegetables, and fruit (including banana) for subsistence and supply of the domestic markets will be directly beneficial to a larger number of farmers and provide a greater spread of increased household incomes among the rural population.”[xviii] As the effects of climate change are degrading land traditionally used for pastoralism and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns become the norm, development agendas dependent on the growth of monoculture and plantation agriculture are not a responsible path forward. If liberalization and foreign investment won’t bring development and human flourishing, then it is time we take other models that will more seriously.
PHOTO CREDIT: Free use image from Canva Pro.
References
[i] Kushkush, Ismail. After Barren Years in Somalia, Signs of Growth by the Bunch. The New York Times. December 2014.
[ii] Somali ministry of agriculture and irrigation-USAID. Invest in Somalia. Banana Production and export guide. August 20.2020
[iii] USAID. Somalia. Growth, Enterprise, Employment & Livelihoods Annual Progress Report. GEEL. 2018.
[iv] Christian Webersik. Fighting for the Plenty: The Banana Trade in Southern Somalia, Oxford Development Studies, 33:1. (2005):81-97.
[v] The Horn Observer. Somalia exports third consignment of 17 tons of bananas to Saudi Arabia. June 2020.
[vi] Meaning development or commodification. Roncati, Remo. "ASPETTI E PROBLEMI DELLA BANANICOLTURA SOMALA E DEL COMMERCIO BANANIERO." Africa: Rivista Trimestrale Di Studi E Documentazione Dell’Istituto Italiano per L’Africa E L’Oriente 29, no. 3 (1974).
[vii] Raphael Chijioke Njoku. Greenwood histories of modern nations. The history of Somalia. February 2013.
[viii] Furlow, Richard Bennett The Spectre of Colony: Colonialism, Islamism, and State in Somalia. Arizona State University. 2013.
[ix] Samatar, Abdi Ismail. "Structural Adjustment as Development Strategy? Bananas, Boom, and Poverty in Somalia." Economic Geography 69, no. 1 (1993): 25-43.
[xi] M. McQueen, C. Phillips, D. Hallam, A. Swinbank. ACP-EU Trade and Aid Co-operation Post-Lomé IV. Chapter 8. The Lomé Banana Protocol. November 1997
[xii] Samatar, Abdi Ismail. "Structural Adjustment as Development Strategy? Bananas, Boom, and Poverty in Somalia." Economic Geography 69, no. 1 (1993): 25-43.
[xiii] Bellamy, Angelina Sanderson. "Banana Production Systems: Identification of Alternative Systems for More Sustainable Production." Ambio 42, no. 3 (2013).
[xiv] Wesseling, Catharina, Luisa Castillo, and Carl-Gustaf Elinder. "Pesticide Poisonings in Costa Rica." Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health 19, no. 4 (1993
[xv] Kambhampaty, Anna Purna.What We Can Learn. From the Near-Death of the Banana. Time Magazine. November 2019.
[xvi] Deaton, Angus. "Commodity Prices and Growth in Africa." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 13, no. 3 (1999): 23-40.
[xvii] Hack, Hans. McKilligan, Hector. FAO., Somalia Water and Land Information Management Project (SWALIM). Banana Sector Study for Somalia. 2003.
[xviii] Ibid.