Banana cultivation started in Costa Rica in 1878 when the furst stems were shipped to New Orleans. Bananas are not native to the Carribean or Central America, but came over some time during the Spanish Invasion. The production of bananas really took off with the completion of the atlantic railroad i n 1890. A man by the name of Minor Keith had possession of 324,000 hectacres along the railroad, and paid the trailway buildings for the incomes from banana plantations. From 1883 to 1889 banana stem exports rose from 100,000 stems to over a million stems. He then merged his company with the Boston Fruit Company to for the giant company of the United Fruit Company. The banana production industry has suffered greatly from strikes and diseases. Unlike recently, working conditions were appalling, and strikes were so frequent that when the Panama disease and then Sigatoca disease swept the region in the 1930s and 1940s, United Fruit abandoned its opperations in the Atlantic and move to the pacific coast, where it planted around Golfito, Coto Colorado, and Palmar. The indusrty had bigger problems grow with the formation of unions. In 1985, after a 72-day strike, United Fruit finally closed its operations in southwestern Costa Rica. Many of the plantations where replaced by stands of palma africanaand others others were leased to independent growers and farmers cooperatives who sell to United Fruit. Banana export earnings rose from $482.9 million in 1992 to $531 million in 1993. Bananas were obviously a big part of Costa Rica's formation as a county to what it is today. As of 1992 there were 50,000 hectacres of banana planted in Costa Rica, a 50% increase from 1985. Banana production just recently lost the top spot as Costa Rica's top GDP production to Tourism.