Large scale pineapple production in Costa Rica began in the late eighties in the south of the country, in Buenos Aires de Puntarenas, carried out by the company Pindeco S.A., a subsidiary of Del Monte. This company started using technology to increase productivity, and developed a production system dependent on chemical inputs, which includes the use of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and fertilizers, in order to induce flowering and regulate plant harvest. Industrial complexes are also installed for the collection and packaging of the product, which drastically changed the landscape.
The pineapple expansion without proper planning and without control by public institutions has generated many negative impacts, social environment on the health of people and human rights. For instance, population of Buenos Aires in 1978 was 23460 increased to 43526 in 2003, with out any kind of planinng.
After 30 years of presence PINDECO, the canton has a poverty rate of 40.4% (State of the Nation, 2005), ranks 74th of 81 in the index of social backwardness (Census, 2000), 77 the cantonal human poverty index (IPHC) and the human development index occupied position 74 in 2009 (UNDP, UCR 2011). PINDECO is the largest employer in the canton (SENDER, 2006).
In turn, the problem has been generated by neoliberal policies that have been checked to established small and medium agro-export model that favors non-traditional agricultural activities.
In Buenos Aires, the change in the landscape was more radical for population centers, because the lands acquired by transnational were located fragmented, near residential areas and with a peasant production more in agricultural activities.
As a result, it generates the abandonment of family farming. Against this context, there have been various social movements and Buenos Aires community is organized to expose the problems linked to pineapple monoculture, and human rights violations. They require the State to reverse the situation.
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