Thread: Chinese Banana Plantations Lose Their Appeal in Laos as Pollution Concerns Grow

For the people in the tiny Lao villages that dot the mountains in the land-locked country’s northwestern border, the banana looked like a savior.

Demand for bananas in neighboring China was skyrocketing, and Chinese investors rushed to build banana plantations in Laos’ impoverished northern provinces.

The plantations helped satisfy the demand for bananas in China, and even though the pay was low, it was better than no pay at all, so villagers flocked to the plantations looking for work.

For a time, everything appeared to work the way it should: Lao laborers had work and the Chinese gained a new source for bananas and the profits they brought.

While Laos isn’t among the world’s top banana producers, banana production there has exploded. In 2002, Laos produced less than 90,000 tons of bananas, but by 2013 it was producing more than 400,000.

Eventually, however, things began to go sour, and the Laos began to wonder if the banana deal they made with their neighbors was a good one.

Unlike in South and Central Laos where the bananas are easy to grow, Mother Nature needs help in the provinces of Bokeo, Luang Namtha, Phongsaly, and Sayaboury.

The Kuay Nam vs. the Cavendish

Instead of the native “kuay nam,” the Chinese plantations generally grow the world's top banana the Cavendish.

“The difference is that in the north, the Chinese invest in banana plantations with commercial types of bananas from foreign countries, and they require fertilizers and chemical substances due to the many diseases and pests,” explained Vongpaphan Manivong, a researcher with the Lao National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute.

“In central and southern Laos there are native banana plantations that use almost no fertilizers and chemical substances,” he added.

To ward off the 28 diseases and 19 insects that attack banana plants in the north, plantation owners turned to a cornucopia of pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides and fertilizers to boost production.

While the chemicals helped the banana plantations thrive, they didn’t help the banana workers or the plantations' neighbors.

The chemicals leached into the ground water and the thousands of plastic packages that the chemicals were packed in were strewn across the countryside, causing worry about contamination and, in one case, the pollution was blamed for a death.

“Chinese plantation owners throw the waste, including fertilizer and plastic bags, plastic bottles of pesticides and insecticides into the stream the villagers use for their livelihood,” a resident of That and Phokham villages in Luang Namthan province told RFA.

“The plantation owners do not manage the waste, and villagers are not happy with it because during the rainy season the chemical substances will be swept into the stream so no one dares to take a bath in there,” he said.

In Simeuang-ngam village the runoff from a banana plantation was blamed for killing 900 kg of fish, and the Chinese investors backing the plantation found it cheaper to pay compensation than to prevent the contamination, according to local sources.

“The fish in the pond died, and the Chinese plantation owner paid the fish pond owner for compensation,” a villager told RFA. “Chinese investors in the banana plantations do not pay attention to preventing the environmental impact.”

Banana production in Laos 2002-2013. RFA graphicU.S. $62.50 for a dead man
Banana plantation workers who got the most exposure to the chemicals began to get sick, villagers told RFA. Open sores formed on their arms and they began to get headaches and dizzy spells.

A government official in the Pha Oudom district, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA that one worker died from exposure to the chemicals.

The official told RFA that the banana plantation owner gave the victim 500,000 kip (U.S. $62.50) when he was treated in the hospital, but when he died his family wasn’t paid.

Conditions for banana workers are so bad that plantation owners only allow them to work on a plantation for three years because they fear they will die there, sources tell RFA.

In February armed Chinese guards forced Lao workers in the country’s Oudomxay province to labor in banana plantations, a local village chief told RFA.

A chief of the Nongbouadeang village in the province’s Houn district told RFA that 50 Lao workers in a Chinese-owned banana plantation in the neighboring village of Nammieng were working under Chinese overseers armed with automatic rifles.

“The plantation owner uses the weapons because he is scared that Lao workers will resist his orders, but he does not have permission to have firearms," said the chief. In Laos the ownership of firearms is tightly regulated.

While China and Laos have had an off-again, on-again relationship, Beijing has been pushing for closer ties. China has vied aggressively for influence in Laos through aid, loans, and infrastructure investment.

China is now the biggest foreign investor in Laos, with Beijing claiming to have pumped nearly $6 billion into the country in 2015. China is also bankrolling a $7.2 billion high-speed railway project.

While deepening ties included the banana plantations, the cavalier attitude about pollution has also deepened Lao concerns, at least locally.

Concessions suspended

In Bokeo province, Governor Khamphanh Pheuyavong suspended new land concessions for bananas, citing the pollution of the water supply and the health concerns of the workers, including the laborer who died. Khamphanh Pheuyavong’s decision came after a government report found that the minuses of the banana industry in northern Laos might outweigh the pluses.

Vongpaphan Manivong told RFA the problem doesn’t lie so much with the chemicals used, but with the way they are regulated.

“I do not mean the banana plantations are not good, but provincial agriculture sectors cannot manage the waste, chemical substances and fertilizers,” Vongpaphan Manivong. “The provincial agriculture departments do not have any records of fertilizers and chemical substances that the plantation uses.”

In his research, Vongpaphan Manivong found that chemical counterfeiting was rampant as banned chemicals are imported with new labels slapped on them to fool Lao customs officers. Researchers found nearly 50 different chemicals bound for the plantations that were either banned or faked to look like they were approved.

Vongpaphan Manivong told RFA the dearth of enforcement allows unscrupulous plantation owners to use banned chemicals.

“Some fertilizers and chemical substances that are banned from use in Laos as well as China, are still somehow imported,” he said. “The border checkpoints in the north cannot control the dangerous imports.”

Chinese Banana Plantations Lose Their Appeal in Laos as Pollution Concerns Grow

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas, etc.

That doesnt include the deforestation to make way for the bananas.

Lao Province Issues Banana Ban

Authorities in the northern Lao province of Bokeo suspended the operations of 18 Chinese-backed banana plantations after they discovered widespread violations of the regulations governing the use of agricultural chemicals, government officials told RFA's Lao Service.

“It has been a problem for the environment as the Chinese companies destroy the environment with their heavy use of chemicals,” a provincial official told RFA’s Lao Service.

The companies have also planted banana trees in areas where they aren’t permitted, the official said.

“The Chinese investors also plant outside of the areas where they have approval from the government,” the official explained. “Therefore, the planting is [now] banned.”

The ban went into effect at the beginning of 2017 and covers banana plantations mainly in Tonpheung and Huayxai districts.

With the backing of Chinese investors, banana plantations have cropped up all over Laos, but the environmental impacts have been felt mostly in northern provinces like Bokeo.

Instead of growing the native “kuay nam” banana, the Chinese plantations generally produce the world's top banana, the Cavendish.

While the Cavendish is the most popular banana, growing it in the northern provinces requires the use of a cornucopia of pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, and fertilizers to boost production and ward off the 28 diseases and 19 insects that attack banana plants.

The use of the chemicals has helped the banana plantations thrive, but they have also leached into the ground water, and the thousands of plastic packages that the chemicals were packed in have been strewn across the countryside. In one case, the pollution was blamed for a death.

Worker exposure

Banana plantation workers exposed to the chemicals have gotten sick as open sores formed on their arms and they began to get headaches and dizzy spells.

A government official in the Pha Oudom district, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFA in 2016 that one worker had died from exposure to the chemicals.

The official told RFA that the banana plantation owner gave the victim 500,000 kip (U.S. $62.50) when he was treated in the hospital, but his family wasn’t paid when he died.

Conditions for banana workers are so bad that plantation owners allow them to work on a plantation for only three years because they fear they will die there, sources told RFA in 2016.

“The Chinese investors only think of their benefits. They invest lots of money, and they take advantage of the villagers,” the provincial official told RFA on Jan. 25. "The plantations in Tonpheung and Bokeo have now been banned, and they are slowly leaving. They don’t want to come any more.”

Over the next two years, Bokeo provincial officials hope to switch agricultural production from bananas to other crops such as watermelons and palms.

For the remaining banana trees, the government plans to wait until after the bananas are harvested, and then they will close the plantations, the official said.

Lao Province Issues Banana Ban

Would have been more efficient if they managed the waste disposal properly instead of closing the plantations.

This is why the west need to urgently re-engage with SEAsian nations to prevent China from ruining them and establishing a regional hegemony that makes it impossible to remove them from control of the area.
How on earth can you possibly get China to sort out its pollution without containing it and presenting it with a credible and very large arsenal of sticks - the days of carrots for China have got to be over.

Originally Posted by birding

That doesnt include the deforestation to make way for the bananas.

Business ambition and moral compasses have little to do with one another...


Mindless and overt consumption blinds.

^
that manages to be both completely meaningless, as well as being completely incorrect - quite a feat!

China does not believe in the adage Don't bite the hand that feeds you more likely bite it after it feeds you. In these days of The USAs' (and to a smaller degree European)companies headlong rush to the bottom with greed based globalisation, (to pay even less to make even more), they have finally encountered a country that has the same appalling lack of ethics, decency and accountability as themselves. China will bite the west severely for their greed and lack of foresight and as usual the suffering will be passed down from the ones who caused it and profited by it, to the ones that didn't.

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

^
that manages to be both completely meaningless, as well as being completely incorrect - quite a feat!

When have you ever known of an instance where corporations/governments activities are of an altruistic nature......??