Firstly, a finca run by a Belgian banana farmer.
He started more or less 3 years ago with his plantation and his goal is to deliver high-class bananas like the Canarian farmers.
Secondly, part of our discovery will be a visit to one of the Cooperative companies that prepares the bananas for export.
Adriaan, the owner of the plantation and his friend Johnny from the New Charleston in Chaparal, Costa Del Silencio were very happy to guide us through the finca.
I was impressed when they drove up the driveway to the finca seeing the huge array of banana trees.
The mature trees are about 2 to 3 metres high and on the contrary, fruit orchards in Belgium, Holland or the UK, trees generally mature at different stages. During the whole year, banana trees will have matured and produce ripened bananas.
Remarkably, the tree dies when it produces its bananas. It is not so dramatic though when you find out that next to the main trunk new little trees appear which will supply 70 kilos of bananas in 12-14 months.
Owner Adriaan explained to us how they need to cut most of the ‘offspring female’ trees down to keep the producing trees healthy. The ‘females’ take the ‘energy’ from the males!
Ok, so, we have now seen the trees, but how do bananas grow?
Well actually, it is more or less like any other kind of fruit. Firstly the blossom; a huge lovely coloured purple, red and orange flower follows down the middle of the trunk. The more it grows, the lower it hangs and the leaves open to produce rows of ‘mini bunches’ of bananas replacing the original flowers.
Ironically the tree is not strong enough to carry this fruit so the farmer has to support the tree on both sides with metal sticks otherwise the tree cracks in the middle and loses the bananas.
Farming would not be farming if there were no questions about fertilizing, draining and irrigation.
Adriaan proudly showed us his method. A machine mixes the fertilizer with water, which is automatically supplied twice a week all over the finca, so the plants are fed and watered at the same time.
One of my questions was also: “What about insects?” You hear many stories about big spiders in banana plantations but are they true? Most of the spiders are tiny but farmers fear another insect...the White Fly (la Mosca Blanca). Farmers are instructed to use products against them. Little woolly white fluffy balls are often seen and farmers put blue plastics bags over the growing bananas, which give them more protection and stimulate a better quality of the harvest.
Many fallen bananas start decaying on the ground but they go to good use! Theme parks such as Loro Parque and the Monkey Park use this as animal feed.
The second part of our discovery starts here. We drive up to Coplaca (Coopetariva Platanera de Canarias) COPLACA – Grupo Regional de Cooperativas del Archipiélago Canario. This organisation was started in 1972. In 1995, it became his statute of “Producers Organisations in Europe” after adapting the norms of the “Organización Común de Mercado del Plátano (OCM)”. Nowadays they are Europe’s biggest producer with more then 286 million pond bananas per year. Coplaca collects bananas from over 4600 farmers with the help of a 20 cooperative companies. In one of those are we invited by Victor and Israel, managers of the Cooperativa Agrícola Del Norte de Tenerife, FAST. With great pleasure, they explained to us the whole circuit. First, we were sent off with a trucker to one of the fincas to collect bananas. Soon we will discover that we arrived in a real man’s world. No other women but us. Anyway, we are the Maginkhy girls and we just followed them between the trees. One of the men held a big knife and cut the mature bunches of bananas. We were surprised to see how each single man just lifts a 176 pond bunch of bananas on their shoulder and then walk on very unstable ground to the truck with it. I cannot believe they do not hurt their feet or ankles with this heavy weight on them. Ok, they use a protection belt for the back and a blanket to protect their shoulder, but still...
The workers of FAST stay at the truck. There are three of them. The driver, who handles a very big knife to cut of the stalk of the banana bunches, before the other two dispose them between protection carpets on the truck.
This is their daily job. They go from finca to finca to collect millions and millions of bananas.
Back in the Cooperativa FAST, Israel is waiting to guide through the production process. He will explain us every little detail. All incoming bananas need a ticket before they go into process. We understand immediately that everything is well organized and supervised. Everything is recorded, from the beginning until the end. Understandable if you see the quantity of bananas they have to process. The bananas have to be cleaned and this happens in several steps. A first clean to erase the pesticides reminds of a carwash. The bunches of bananas hanging on an automatically moving chain, pass through two tunnels. First one, water, second one dryer. The bananas arrive on the manual cleaning stations nearly dry. Still hanging on the chain, the bunches are being stripped of their bananas by some good muscled boys. Again razor-sharp knifes are being used. The empty stalk and leftovers go through a mill, and are used to make fertilizer. The bundles of bananas go on a conveyer belt. The first persons give them a second clean with a sprinkler. They spout all the last bits of dirt of the bananas before they go into another tunnel. This time they get a treatment against fungus, mould and insects. Without this treatment, the bananas go rot in a few days. On the other side of this tunnel, women with an eye for detail, classify the fruit in four categories. EXTRA G (minimum 33 mm thick and at least 15 centimeters long). This premium article is mostly exported to the mainland Spain; however, they also go to Alcampo, El Cortes Inglès, Jesumán and supermercado Altesa. Therefore, who wants the best, goes to those supermarkets. The second category is the EXTRA. Then we have the PRIMERA and then the CONSUMO INTERIOR. This last category is never to be exported. You can always by this category in the cooperative FAST. However, you have to buy a complete box of approximately 33 ponds. All bananas rejected for commercial use go into a big container, and again the lucky winners are the theme parks. All categories have a typical box. The women that select them arrange them in the right boxes. On the box will come a ticket with the name of de cooperative, the farm, the plot, date, etc. A mechanized system stacks up the boxes on a pallet perfectly. A laser eye reads of all the tickets and then prints a resume on a big new ticket. This pallet is ready to go. To ensure the storage life of the bananas, they are being harvest before maturity. They are treated with gentleness, and incredibly fast be processed from farmer to consumer, even overseas. The transport containers are special cool containers and keep a temperature of 53,60°F. This low temperature stops the bananas from ripen. Normally it takes only 3 days to take the bananas from the finca to Madrid. Today for us it was much faster. Israel rewarded us, for our attention and interest, with a full box of beautiful bananas. At least 15 kilo! We will eat the following days, bananas, banana split, banana flambé, banana milkshake, banana compote ...
Text & Photos: Khyra Vanhoutte
Special thanks to Johny (New Charleston), Adriaan (Finca), Israel & Victor (FAST).
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