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Christmas is coming and the pineapple has become a tradition, but at what price? RECIPE OF SCRAP

The retail offer has made us accustomed to a lot of exotic products. Goods whose origin is unknown and often very little of which no one can explain the economy.
But where do these products, how can they be available all year, and most importantly, can cost as little as if, behind them, there is a long chain of production, transport, packaging, storage and distribution ?
Take for example the pineapple. A product increasingly Economic, whose free fall in prices in the supermarkets of the old continent, has paid the consequences (in some ways literally) who produces the fruit.
Three-quarters of pineapples comes from Costa Rica A huge production, but concentrated in the hands of two multinationals in particular - the American Dole and Del Monte - which dominate world trade.
In a survey by the European Union and co-produced by the British newspaper The Guardian have documented both the conditions of exploitation and poverty suffered by persons employed in the plantations and the impact on health (and their local populations) caused by the massive use pesticides and chemicals needed for the cultivation intensive tropical fruit.

Fernando Ramirez, an expert agronomist National University of Costa Rica's Institute of the Universidad Nacional Toxic Substances, said the cycle agrochemical need to monocultures to produce perfect fruit for sale: "The pineapple require large amounts of pesticides, about 20 kg of active ingredients per hectare per cycle. The soils are sterilized; biodiversity deleted. Generally you need 14 to 16 types of treatment, and many of them are performed several times. Using substances chemicals hazardous to the environment and human health. "

Thanks to chemical production increased by 50% since 1998, but the substances used, lawyers in Costa Rica but deemed controversial in the world, have undermined the aquifers of the plantations and worsened the already difficult conditions of the populations of . The effects on health care: the last analysis commissioned by the government found 22 contaminants that at best trigger new forms of infection.

lower the price we pay in Europe, the higher they have to pay the producers of Costa Rica and dozens of other countries.

Source:
ilcambiamento.it
The Guardian

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