Existence of commercial bananas threatened by disease — and there is no known way to stop it
Existence of commercial bananas threatened by disease — and there is no known way to stop it
By Washington Post December 4, 2015
In the mid 1900s, the most popular banana in the world — a sweet, creamy variety called Gros Michel grown in Latin America — all but disappeared from the planet. At the time, it was the only banana in the world that could be exported. But a fungus, known as Panama Disease, which first appeared in Australia in the late 1800s, changed that after jumping continents. The disease debilitated the plants that bore the fruit. The damage was so great and swift that in a matter of only a few decades the Gros Michel nearly went extinct.
Now, half a century later, a new strain of the disease is threatening the existence of the Cavendish, the banana that replaced the Gros Michel as the world’s top banana export, representing 99 per cent of the market, along with a number of banana varieties produced and eaten locally around the world. MAnd there is no known way to stop it — or even contain it.
That’s the troubling conclusion of a new study published in the journal PLOS Pathogens, which confirmed something many agricultural scientists have feared to be true: that dying banana plants in various parts of the world are suffering from the same exact thing, Tropical Race 4, a more potent mutation of Panama Disease.
Specifically, the researchers warn that the strain, which first began wreaking havoc in Southeast Asia some 50 years ago and has more recently spread to other parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia, will eventually make its way to Latin America, where the vast majority of the world’s exported bananas are still grown. At this point, they say, it’s not a question of whether Tropical Race 4 will infiltrate the mothership of global banana production; it’s a matter of when.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/112794708
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Bananas may be close to going extinct, study says
Posted - December 05 2015 18:34 by Edmund Collier
At the end of that century, a contagious, durable fungus began afflicting plantations with what came be known as Panama disease - a fatal wasting that within a few decades wiped the Gros Michel off the map. This new virus, called the Tropical Race 4, functions exactly like the aforementioned Panama Disease, by attacking the plant and killing it completely.
Banana lore has long held that the bright yellow variety of the fruit - the world's fourth-most valuable food product after rice, wheat, and milk - is a mere shadow of the banana our grandparents would've enjoyed.
Virtually 100% of the world's bananas are now the Cavendish variety. Ecuador remains to be the largest exporter of bananas in the world, supplying 5.3 million tonnes of bananas, despite experiencing a slump back in 2012.
Bananas are the world's most valuable fruit; between 2001 and 2012, exports rose from 11.9m tonnes to 16.5m.
Are bananas going extinct? Experts believe that it is only a matter of time before the fungus spreads to regions of Latin America where the bulk of the bananas found in our supermarkets are imported from.
More:
http://heraldvoice.com/2015/12/05/bananas-may-be-close-to-going-extinct-study-says/
