Dr. Diana Córdoba, Associate Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies, has published a chapter titled “Plant Pathogens, Power and Contract Farming” in the newly released Routledge Handbook of Contract Farming and Development.
The chapter examines how Panama disease and Black Sigatoka reshaped banana contract farming in the Urabá region of Colombia. Dr. Córdoba traces how Panama disease pushed export production into Urabá in the 1960s and drove the shift to the Cavendish variety, which only well-capitalized growers could adopt under contract. After Black Sigatoka arrived in 1981, trade companies took control of fumigation away from growers, and some profited from it through their stakes in aerial spraying firms. Smaller producers who could not meet the costs were blamed for spreading the disease.
The chapter argues that plant pathogens and agrochemicals play an active part in how agribusinesses exercise control, extract value, and shift risk onto farmers, and it proposes an agenda for research on how ecological change shapes contract farming relationships.
The Routledge Handbook of Contract Farming and Development is available in print and as an e-book from Routledge.