Bye, Bye, Bananas

The popular Cavendish banana, representing 99 percent of all export bananas, is under threat. It’s not the first time export bananas have succumbed to a disease, explains Roberto A. Ferdman, after a fungus spread from Australia to South America and destroyed the previous top export banana, Gros Michael. A new variation of the fungus, Tropical Race 4, emerged in Southeast Asia 50 years ago and spread to Africa, the Middle East, and Australia and is expected to infiltrate the Americas and wipe out bananas in a few decades. He compares the banana fungus to the Irish Potato Blight, which destroyed potato crops in the mid-nineteenth century. “The reason the original disease and its latest permutation are so threatening to bananas is largely a result of the way in which we have cultivated the fruit,” Ferdman writes. He explains the world has different varieties, but commercial bananas represent a monoculture, allowing companies to control for consistency. Companies have relied on the Cavendish because it was originally disease-resistant. – YaleGlobal