Battling Banana Blight: Smallholders, Scientists, and Landscapes of Disease in Colonial Jamaica

Matt Plishka (class of 2015) discusses his doctoral dissertation research on the response
to the banana killing fungus known as Panama Disease in 20th century colonial Jamaica. He
explores how Afro-Jamaican smallholding banana growers navigated Panama Disease, trying
different management strategies and engaging with local and circum-Caribbean politics to
maintain their way of life. These strategies were often at odds with the technocratic ethos of
British Empire-appointed agricultural officials, whose racist and paternalist policies led
smallholders to bear the brunt of Panama Disease’s impact. He reveals how the officials’
prioritization of the plantation sector and the constant push and pull between these officials’
“modern” approaches to agriculture and the smallholders’ faith in generations of vernacular
knowledge prevented any united effort to contain Panama Disease’s spread.