Salmonella, the FDA and Honduran Melon Exports

IATP Senior Fellow Mark Muller is working in a volunteer program in Honduras through July. He is blogging periodically on his experiences there.

If people in southern Honduras were looking for an issue to focus an overall, slow-simmering resentment of the United States, the recent ban on Honduran melon imports certainly has provided the spark. As the Honduran newspaper La Tribuna stated recently (in Spanish), “The fruit of discontent is no longer the apple…it is now the melon.” Fifty nine people in U.S. and Canada were sickened by salmonella, and the outbreak was linked to melons imported from Honduras, although the origin of the salmonella is in dispute. Much to the chagrin of the Honduran government, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has blocked Honduran melon imports.

My first impression of the issue – surely formed through spending most of my life as a U.S. food consumer – was thankfulness that the FDA acted to protect the integrity of the U.S. food system. At least 59 people have fallen ill to a potentially serious bacterium; maintaining a safe and healthy food system should take precedent over trade relations or corporate profits. But I am probably the only person in southern Honduras who feels that way. Everyone I have talked to, whether they have financial interest in melon production or not, feels that the U.S. government is fabricating the situation in order to protect U.S. domestic fruit production, or perhaps to provide leverage in future trade negotiations.

Agropecuaria Montelibano, the exporter that allegedly shipped salmonella-tainted melons, claims that the ban has cost them $8 million and has put 5,000 jobs at risk. The potential loss of this employment would be devastating for small, rural communities here in southern Honduras, many of which are practically surrounded by melon fields.

(At left is a mural in the center of town in Choluteca, paying homage to the region´s watermelon and cantaloupe production.)

I don’t know enough about the situation yet to have a position in this debate. But this is clearly another example of a food system built without resiliency. The salmonella outbreak, wherever it occured, seems to have no geographic rhyme or reason, infecting people in 16 states and Canada. This region of Honduras has become completely dependent on exporting melons, sugar and shrimp, and few jobs exist in many communities outside of these industries. While top government officials and corporate executives will drive this issue, it will be a few unlucky U.S. and Canadian consumers – and thousands of very poor Honduran laborers – that will be most hurt.