Madison Stewart, a second-year MS student in occupational and environmental health, spent two weeks in Costa Rica in May 2019 researching the production of one of her favorite foods—bananas. Specifically, she was interested in the occupational health impacts of pesticides used on the fruit.

Her trip was made possible through a grant from the Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellowship, which offers students a unique opportunity to further their understanding of a global health topic of their choice and develop high-level communications skills to publicize the significance of the issue to general audiences.

Although Stewart had traveled internationally before, she had never done so with an academic focus. It also was her first time traveling abroad on her own. She recently answered a few questions about her trip and reporting project.

What inspired you to apply for the Pulitzer reporting fellowship?

I’ve always wanted to go on a travel abroad trip, but never had the opportunity before starting my master’s program. My original undergrad major was English, and I had the intention of becoming a journalist. However, I later changed my major to environmental science because I enjoyed it much more. When I saw the Pulitzer fellowship, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to combine two of my favorite subjects.

Can you describe your reporting project – what you were investigating, how you got interested in the subject, and how you made contacts for the story?

My project was on pesticide application on banana plan­tations. I learned in a class years ago that bananas were extremely difficult to grow and had already gone commercially extinct once before. From my agricultural safety and health classes, I knew pesticide handling and application was also a critical public health topic. Combining the two seemed very intuitive, and when I dived into the research I found that it was a huge occupational health issue. I’m also a person who eats a banana every day and wanted to better understand my impact as a consumer on occupational health.

Making contacts for the story consisted of research, research, and more research. I contacted the principal investigators (PIs) of the research studies I found and crossed my fingers and hoped I got a response. Diane Rohlman, a professor in my department, actually knew one of the PIs and helped connect us, which was extra-ordinarily helpful. The PI, Dr. Berna van Wendel de Joode, was actually one of the most informative interview participants I had.

I also reached out to NGOs, non-profits, commercial plantations, etc. I ended up touring multiple commercial plantations while I was there and interviewing their managers. They walked me through the entire production process and showed me how they were protecting worker health.

What did you discover while working on the project?

The problems of pesticide over-application were much more broad than the research showed. In a way, I believe seeing the problem firsthand helped me to better understand its depth. There are so many facets to the issue and there are no simple solutions.

Insecticidal bags are tied around the plants to keep bugs off the bananas and are put on as soon as the fruit begins to form. The insecticide within the bags is known to aerosolize and travel quite a distance, posing an inhalation hazard for both workers and the public.

However, two of the plantations I visited were doing their best to produce bananas sustainably and in a way that was safe for workers. The ingenuity of the banana industry was pretty amazing. Each plantation had its own laboratory

where they researched new ways to combat pests. One had started growing their own microorganisms to inject into the leaves to prevent fungal disease and reduce fungicide application. With this method, they had actually reduced their volume of fungicide application by 30 percent.

Was there a language barrier for you, and if so, how did you work around that?

Yes, there was quite a language barrier. I studied Spanish for over 10 years in school, but hadn’t used it in about two years, so I was rusty. I practiced on an app each night the semester before I left, but I found being fully immersed in Spanish once I got there to be the most helpful. Most of my vocabulary came back within a few days so I was able to shop, ask for directions, and order food. However, for the interviews, most were in English because my interview participants were perfectly fluent.

For one last-minute interview, I had to find a translator because no one on the plantation spoke English. I asked the manager at my hotel if they could recommend any employees and I would compensate them for a day of inter­viewing. She recommended a really great man named David who helped me out a lot. We rented a car and toured the plantation together while he did his best to interpret. I gave him all of the background info on my project so he was able to ask a lot of his own informed questions as well.

Fun side story: David and I actually tried to go tour the plantation after a heavy rain. We had to leave at 4 a.m. to make it there on time, and the maps app took us on a back road through the jungle. The road was gravel and my rental car was pretty tiny and didn’t have a lot of horsepower. As you could expect after a heavy rain, we got stuck in the mud in complete darkness, no cell reception, and in the jungle. It was pretty terrifying!

A farmer came by on an ATV and helped us get out of the mud (you could tell he was pretty used to such things). However, I couldn’t understand any of the Spanish he was using! I was so lucky to have David there because unfortunately in high school Spanish, they don’t teach you the directions for getting a car out of the mud. We had to reschedule the tour for the next day.

What form did your final project take?

My final project consisted of a video, written article, and a slide show. The article has been accepted for publication in Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Global Health Now.

How will this experience help you as you continue on in your education and career?

This project was an incredible experience! Traveling abroad alone was an opportunity for self-discovery and conquering fears. I grew a lot both as an individual and as a researcher/student. I definitely enjoyed the more hands-on approach of working in the field and gathering one-on-one interview data. As of now, I’m currently implementing what I learned about interviewing in the methods section of my master’s thesis. I’m very grateful to the Pulitzer Center and the college’s Global Public Health Initiative for granting me this experience.

This story originally appeared in the fall 2019 issue of InSight magazine

Photos courtesy of Madison Stewart