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The Benefits of AgroforestryOrganic bananas are more than healthy bananas. They are cultivated in the shade of the natural forest, along with other types of fruits and vegetables in a multi-culture system called agroforestry. Agroforestry prevents further deforestation, by maintaining or restoring natural forest, which also helps to produce oxygen, promotes biodiversity and sequesters carbon. Soil is naturally protected from erosion and nutrients are constantly replenished in the soil by the plants themselves. This system also allows small farmers to diversify their production.In contrast, most conventional banana growers clear-cut large areas of diverse, tropical rainforest to utilize highly fertile soil. They rarely rotate crops, and continue planting until essential nutrients are stripped from the soil, erosion occurs and production declines, requiring them to cut more natural forests to plant new fields of bananas. As a general rule, they plant row upon row of the same species, which is why this is called monocultural farming. 
In the agroforestry system no agrochemicals are used, which further
protects the land and water systems from pollution. The majority of
conventional banana plantations, however, use an array of agrochemicals.
They use chemicals to clear ground for crop growth and others to maintain
fertility. They apply nematocides against the worms that might attack
plant roots and crop dusters drop chemicals to protect the plants
against black sigatoka, a fungus that shrinks the fruit and eventually
kills the plant. Also, plastic bags are filled with a neurotoxic pesticide
and tied around the bunches of fruit to protect them from pests. Pesticide
use in conventional plantations can be as much as 20 times greater
than the average use on crops in industrialized countries, according
to the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA).The use of these chemicals as well as planting techniques lead to a vicious cycle in which an increasing amount of chemicals are needed, as chemical fertilizers and pesticides reduce soil fertility and make plants more prone to disease. Monoculture bananas are also more prone to pest attack and pests are increasingly resistant to pesticides. Not only does this intensive chemical usage have a negative effect on the environment, but they are a proven health threat to workers and to the communities that surround them. Pollution can also result from inadequate disposal of waste such as rejected fruit and the plastic bags used to protect the bananas. An array of drainage ditches all eventually empty into rivers and finally the sea, polluting the surrounding land and waterways and contributing to the destruction of coral reefs. In organic agroforestry farming, on the other hand, the health of the environment is recognized as being imperative to the success of the farm. This system works in harmony with nature rather than destroying it. Some farmers are even able to reclaim abandoned conventional plantations and revert them to their natural state. |