Viv Yumul

The Farmer’s Lot

In the previous article, myths surrounding the banana idealized man's appreciation for divine providence and wisdom. Its fruits were the reincarnated manifestation of the love of an exemplary queen, and that of the engkanto, who, engrossed in a crossed-dimensional love affair with a human, rose into a banana plant to reach out for his lover. All of which may attest to man's recognition of the belongingness of his experience, not as a foreground, but as a being within the world, that his abstract emotions could literally grow into something delicious. These stories may have been shared in the growing communities established during the agricultural revolution. Yet, the native cultures, when forced to capitulate to the Spanish Empire, were consumed by the tributary state paradigm whose core effect was the reduction of community farming life into slavery. The cross banished the spirits of the land along with the fantastic tales that endowed higher meanings to vegetation.

Where the soil was most fertile, the sun encouraged good harvest, and the people had mastered how to work with the land, the Spaniards eagerly implemented the clear-cutting of primary forests to make way for the New World crops. While prehistoric migrations and rice-farming potentially changed the islands before, land clearing gradually intensified according to the demands of the European expansion. In the heat, and the grueling conditions of the sugarcane fields, the banana plant served as shade and source of energy to the beaten bodies of farmers. The banana was also the object of competition in the old fable of 'The Monkey and the Turtle', told in the many dialects of the islands. In "Two Eastern Fables", Jose Rizal recounts the tale:

The tortoise and the monkey once found a banana tree floating amidst the waves of a river. It was a very fine tree, with large green leaves, and with roots, just as if it had been pulled off by a storm. They took it ashore.

“Let us divide it,” said the tortoise, “and plant each its portion.”

They cut it in the middle, and the monkey, as the stronger, took for himself the upper part of the tree, thinking that it would grow quicker, for it had leaves.

The tortoise, as the weaker, had the lower part that looked ugly, although it had roots.

After some days they met.

“Hello, Mr. Monkey,” said the tortoise. “How are you getting on with your banana tree?”

“Alas,” answered the monkey. “It has been dead a long time! And yours Miss Tortoise?”

“Very nice, indeed; with leaves and fruits. Only I cannot climb up, to gather them.”

“Never mind,” said the malicious monkey. “I will climb and pick them for you.”

“Do, Mr. Monkey,” replied the tortoise gratefully.

And so they walked towards the tortoise’s house. As soon as the monkey saw the bright yellow fruits hanging between the large green leaves, he climbed up and began plundering, munching and gobbling, as quick as he could.

“But give me some, too,” said the tortoise, seeing that the monkey did not take the slightest notice of her.

“Not even a bit of skin, if it is eatable,” rejoined the monkey, both his cheeks crammed with bananas.

The tortoise meditated revenge. She went to the river, picked up some pointed snails, planted them around the banana tree, and hid herself under a cocoa-nut shell.

When the monkey came down, he hurt himself and began to bleed. After a long search, he found the tortoise.

“You wretched creature, here you are!” said he. “You must pay for your wickedness; you must die. But as I am very generous, I will leave to you the choice of your death. Shall I pound you in a mortar, or shall I throw you into the water? Which do you prefer?”

“The mortar, the mortar,” answered the tortoise. “I am so afraid of getting drowned.”

“O ho!” laughed the monkey. “Indeed! You are afraid of getting drowned! Now I will drown you.”

And, going to the shore, he slung the tortoise and threw it in the water. But soon the tortoise reappeared swimming and laughing at the deceived, artful monkey.

On top of stealing the farmers' lands, devaluing food-growers and the communities they supported, the natives were branded in literature and later on in television, as the infamous Juan Tamad, or lazy John. This is due to farmers being seen to take naps at noon under the shade of trees. Little did the foreigners know, as they were from places of different climates, that local farmers actually start work very early in the day, taking a pause when the sun is at its highest, allowing only the necessary evaporation to occur in the body. This practice allows the continuation of labor possible in the afternoon. Unfortunately, the myth was passed down to children, to the point that many still believe it to be true, and that the only solution proposed against impoverishment is an insult: work harder.

Bacon (2020) writes "It’s no accident that the 300-year history of the Philippines as a colony of Spain, and its half-century as a colony of the U.S., were marked by repeated uprisings of farmers." The same game runs on, hundreds of years later, when the banana fruit rose to the top as a globally 'important' crop. The Philippines became a primary producer, banking huge profits every year. Behind it, dismal conditions were revealed. Banana farmers, who plant the roots, never get to taste the economic progress, and continue to be exhausted under piling debts. These debts were reportedly due to unchecked lopsided contracts benefiting only the multinational companies.

Changing the story again

Many banana farmers in Davao bravely fought to finally gain their lands back where they worked for many generations. They grappled in the attempt to access the market and fair trade prices. But the repercussions of monocropping, and the deadly effects of pesticides to ensure ceaseless production, are being felt. The huge scale farming of the Cavendish export variety is vulnerable to disease and pestilence. Meanwhile, companies limit themselves to band-aid solutions such as quarantines and invention of pesticides even more devastating to the ecological balance.

In Mindanao, a farmer recalls how before they allowed the banana plantation, there were forests of many fruiting trees and various animals in it. And now they're all gone, including the frogs that one would expect to be hopping in the fields. Everywhere the practice went, with its embedded principles that excluded humanities and its close-knitted relationship with nature hardly did what it promised, and instead wreaked havoc. From the 1900s to the early 21st century, Philippines' forest cover dropped from 70 percent to 24 percent. And as of 2015, only 15 percent of primary forests remained.

Some farmers heed the call by reconsidering forgotten traditions through indigenous groups whose lives have been at risk in refusing deforestation. In Palawan, the efforts of NGOs to integrate indigenous practices to protect ancestral lands are even more challenged, as the local government overtly opens its doors to international investors, promoting the island as an alternative source for oil and minerals in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, while they promise sustainable farming as part of the agritourism project of the year.

The mischievous monkey still munches on ripe bananas he does not know how to grow. At the rate of his activities, he brings humanity to a crossroads. It has manifested to such a degree that the farmer's lot must be a collective duty for all people.

(Part I) The Many Stories of Banana: Origins

https://thelivinglibrary.ph/mythology-practices/the-many-stories-of-the-banana-part-1

Reference:

Bacon, D. (2020). The Philippine banana farmers: their cooperatives and struggle for land reform and sustainable agriculture. Retrieved from https://portside.org/2020-02-24/philippine-banana-farmers-their-cooperatives-and-struggle-land-reform-and-sustainable

Limos, M. (2020). Jose Rizal published this children's story 130 years ago. Retrieved from https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/the-monkey-and-the-turtle-jose-rizal-a00293-20200721-lfrm