This is a fairly complex issue, but, essentially, the prioritization of cash crops for export frequently undermines national food security. Agro-export economies tend to rely heavily on the import of foodgrains for domestic food consumption, but this economic model displaces food crop production and leads to increases in the price of food crops. As a result, a lot of banana republics in the latter-half of the 20th century attempted to increase domestic-use agriculture, though they remain generally dependent on imports.

In early 19th-century Latin America, many governments concluded that development of the export economy required the discouragement of subsistence agriculture. As a result, "communal lands were alienated and antivagrancy laws were strengthened" in order to "secur[e] an adequate supply of labour" (Bulmer-Thomas 12). In addition to privatization of communal lands, many central american governments implemented forced/coerced labor policies to bolster export agriculture; in Guatemala, for instance, the mandamiento system allowed plantation owners to "draft" indigenous workers to work for low wages at harvest-time, while systems of debt peonage created a functional serfdom (21).

By the early 20th century, many republics saw a majority of their population integrated into plantation farming, and large contingents of the labor force were "obliged to provide labour services on a seasonal basis to [export agriculture] while retaining access to small plots of land for purposes of [domestic-use agriculture]". In Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala, this segment of the labor force comprised a majority in 1920 (21).

Throughout the 1920s, a wave of regional reforms attempted to invigorate the agro-export sector, requiring the repurposing of private farms previously dedicated to domestic-use agricutlure. As a result, central american economies throughout the 1920s grew increasingly dependent on the import of food crops, and nations slow to adapt - notably Guatemala - suffered pervasive food insecurity as a result (39).

The 1929 depression signalled a significant turning point in the development of central american economies and forced central american states to place greater importance on domestic-use agriculture. Given the lack of developed industrial sectors, domestic-use agriculture represented the only major facet of the economy that could be grown without foreign investment (57). This shift served to exacerbate the decline in GDP per capita resultant from the depression itself, and real GDP per capita declined substantially throughout the 1930s. The extent of this decline ranged from 21.3% in Costa Rica to 43% in Nicaragua; though we lack reliable data about median wages, we can safely assume that the damage was even more severe in this regard (58).

Throughout this period, the growth in domestic-used agriculture was mainly localized to large, privately-owned estates. Regardless, during the 1932-1938 period, import substitution initiatives led to increases in domestic-use agriculture in everywhere but Nicaragua. Annual growth rates in the sector were between 4.4% in El Salvador and 16.8% in Guatemala (80).

In the early 1940s, the gradual emergence from the depression allowed central american states to capitalize on their previously underdeveloped pacific frontiers, but, by 1949, most of the land had been exploited; this catalyzed gradual, region-wide degrowth in domestic-use agriculture (113).

A number of policies ultimately retarded the growth of domestic-use agriculture. In order to render the rural populace dependent on wages and discourage subsistence farming, large firms like UFCO maintained large swaths of idle land (277). Attempts to nationalize this land were invariably met with CIA-led pushback, most notably in the 1954 coup against Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. As a result, banana republics remained largely dependent on food imports throughout the 20th century, though land-reform programs undoubtedly helped to reduce this dependency (264).

It's difficult to accurately assess the impact that the agro-export model has had on food security, though available research indicates that increases in domestic-use agriculture typically coincided with increases in food security (Patnaik). Unfortunately, neocolonial interests have a vested interest in maintaining the agro-export model; the IMF's "structural adjustment" programs of the 80s and 90s (we'll end the timeline at 2000 for obvious reasons) served to reinforce this model in central america and develop it in sub-saharan africa, and the available data indicates that it has had a detrimental impact on food security (Patnaik).

CITATIONS:

• Bulmer-Thomas, Victor. The Political Economy of Central America since 1920. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Patnaik, Utsa. "Export-Oriented Agriculture and Food Security in Developing Countries and India." Economic and Political Weekly 31, no. 35 (1996): 2429-2449.