| An investigation by the United States government is now underway in regard to Chiquita Brands International Inc. The investigation is said to focus on the contention that the company has engaged in what is being called the making of "protection" payments to various Colombian organizations. The U.S. government says that these groups are in fact terrorist organizations. The announcement of the investigation came on the same day that the company reported first quarter income dropping to $20 million. Last year during the same period the company enjoyed income of $25 million. This quarter earnings compute out of 46 cents per share as opposed to 62 cents per share last year. The company has said that it takes the investigation seriously but also noted that it was manageable.
The plants grow only from the female flowers (the androgynous flowers are sterile) (7); As far as the development of each row of the fruits is concerned mostly it resembles like the hand with multiple fingers, each one of which represents itself as thick skinned, many-seeded berry. The size, color and shape of the fruits may differentiate well depending upon the sort and type, but mostly they are of longitudinal and cylindrical or triangular in shape, straightened or circled. The length of the fruit varies with in from 3 to 40 cm, thickness – from 2 to 8 cm. (1) The color of the skin may be yellow, green, red or even silver. The pulp of the fruit is white, creamy, yellow or orange. In an unripe form it is hard and sticky, but as it becomes ripe it becomes soft and juicy. The cultivated forms are generally with out seeds and able to multiply only in vegetative method, however the wild-growing plants, the pulp is filled with big quantity of round or sharp hard seeds with a length of 3-16 mm, where according to their mass they may predominate the pulp. (5) On an axis there could up to 300 fruits with a general weight of 50 – 60 kg. (8) The biological phenomenon of the bananas is peculiar, which is famous as the negative geo tropism – during the formation of the fruits under the gravitation force directed downwards, though as far as the growth of the fruit under the affect of hormones is concerned one or many axis starts growing vertically upwards. (9) After the end of the fructification the part of the plant above the ground dies.
In many countries bananas are one of the basic means of nutrition – for example, only in Ecuador, yearly consumption of this product comes to 73.8 kg per person (in comparison with Russia it is equal to 7.29 kg). An essential share of the consumption of bananas also is made in Burundi (189.4 kg), Samoa Islands (85.0 kg), Comoro Islands (77.8 kg) and in Philippines (40.6 kg). (18)
The edible sort of bananas is divided into two groups: desserts, utilized, mainly, in raw or dried state, and plantains (or platano), which before usage requires thermal treatment. The pulp of the dessert sort is very sweet in taste, contains big quantity of carbohydrates, vitamin C and some minerals which are necessary to the organism, such as phosphor, iron, potassium, calcium and magnesium (see the table of food properties down). Platano (from Spanish plantar – to plant) – as per rule, fruits with green and red peel and starchy, hard and sweet less pulp; before using it as food it is fried, boiled or processed with steam. Except using in food, plantains are frequently used as fodder for the house hold cattle.
All most all the cultivated bananas of present times (the dessert sorts as well as the platano) show variation (or with sorts) of one cultigens (artificial type, developed by human being) Musa & paradise, which is considered as the hybrid of the spin form bananas (Musa acuminate), balbisian banana (Musa Balbisiana) and rarely Maclayi's banana (Musa maclayi). |
