Bananas As We Know Them Are Doomed

why are bananas going extinct? and what happens when uniformity replaces diversity?

The banana is the world’s most popular fruit. It’s tasty, convenient as a snack or is a healthy addition to your breakfast cereals.

• Americans eat bananas more than any other fruit (almost 12 kg per year).

• In many developing countries, bananas are a staple food. People eat them every day in their meals (these bananas are also called plantains or cooking bananas). In Uganda, people eat on average 240 kg of bananas per year!

• And millions of small-scale farmers in the tropics depend on banana production for their income.

Enough reasons to celebrate this fabulous fruit… but the banana as we know it is in imminent danger of extinction! In this article, you’ll learn why bananas are going extinct and what we can do about it.

Did you know that literally every banana you buy in the supermarket belongs to one variety, the so-called Cavendish banana? Cultivated bananas don’t have seeds and are only propagated with so-called ‘suckers’ or tissue culture, without sexual reproduction. This means that all the bananas we eat are genetically identical. That’s dangerous, because it makes bananas extremely vulnerable to disease breakout. If one banana plant is susceptible to a disease, then all the others are, too.

Past mistakes….

This was the case in the past already. In the 1950ies and 1960ies, a banana variety called Gros Michel dominated the market. It was tasty, bright yellow and easy to transport across the oceans of the world. But then a fungus appeared that quickly spread around the world, killing entire banana plantations. The fungus, called Fusarium can neither be treated nor eradicated from the soil for decades after infection. Entire plantations were destroyed and abandoned. Gros Michel’s times of fame were over.

Fortunately, a new banana variety that wasn’t susceptible to Fusarium replaced Gros Michel: the Cavendish banana. Cavendish quickly made a name for itself. Today, it accounts for 47% of bananas grown worldwide, and 99% of all bananas exported worldwide. Remember, all of these are genetically identical!

Now, Cavendish, of course, has some weaknesses of its own. It is susceptible to another widespread fungus, called Black Sigatoka. In addition, farmers largely cultivate bananas in monoculture (i.e. one crop cultivated on the same plot year after year). This makes regular pesticide use a necessity: plantations need to be sprayed up to 50 times in one season!

Not quite what you would call ‘sustainable farming’. But at least, Cavendish helped the banana industry flourish once again.

And so, the banana was saved, and all lived happily ever after. Or…?

… all over again

Of course, disaster was sure to hit again. Soon, another strand of the Fusasrium fungus emerged, to which Cavendish, as well as other banana varieties, are susceptible. The fungus, called TR4 or Tropical race 4 causes the so-called Panama disease. Just as it was the case with Gros Michel and its killer-fungus, once infected banana plants die off. There are no effective treatments against TR4. And once a plantation has been touched by it, no Cavendish bananas can be cultivated on it for decades.

TR4 quickly spread from Asia to other parts of the planet. In our globalized world, it was only a question of time until it would spread to all banana-growing countries worldwide. Finally, in August 2019, it reached Latin America, the largest banana export region of the world.

History is repeating itself, with one major problem. There is no new variety that could replace Cavendish, as was the case with Gros Michel before. If we don’t find a solution, we, as consumers, will soon have to take notice of this threat, too.

Endangered farmers

For people in the developed world this might mean simply switching to other fruits or buying different, more expensive banana varieties. But for smallholder farmers across the world, this is a real life threat.

Tens of thousands of farms already had to be destroyed. Millions of farmers around the globe are threatened in their business and livelihoods. Because for many people, bananas are the main source of income and food.

Losing Cavendish might mean having to turn to other, less tasty and productive banana varieties. In the long run, we will sure have to find new, more sustainable solutions.

So, I bet you are asking now: what are the real alternatives to Cavendish?

Finding new bananas

There are, in fact, over a thousand banana varieties worldwide. But they do not have the exact characteristics consumers, growers and companies are looking for in bananas. They might not taste as good, be susceptible to TR4 or other diseases, be difficult to transport over long distances or yield less.

The problem with breeding bananas is that they reproduce asexually. This means that you cannot take two banana breeds and simply cross them, or cross Cavendish with wild, disease-resistant bananas. No seeds, no sexual reproduction, no variation of genes. And this makes breeding new banana varieties extremely difficult and time-consuming.

Researchers are aiming to breed banana cultivars that are resistant to TR4, but these may be too unfamiliar to appeal to consumers and farmers.

Another take on this is use of gene technology. This method is simple and relatively fast. It allows resistance genes, either from wild bananas or nematodes, to be inserted into Cavendish bananas, thus creating several TR4-invulnerable banana lines. Could this be one of the possible solutions?

Genetically modified bananas that are resistant to TR4 have already been developed and tested by Australian scientists. What prevents these varieties from being cultivated is the public opinion on GMOs. Genetic modification is not widely accepted in the public. Still, some voices are calling for the use of these technologies in bananas in order to safeguard food security.

Louise O Fresco, Former Assistant Director-General, Agriculture, FAO and Professor at the University of Amsterdam, says:

“I continue to call for genetic modification of vegetatively propagated crops, such as cassava and banana, as a short-term solution for urgent needs of the poor, particularly when a GM approach is embedded in multidisciplinarity…”

Farmers, in the meanwhile, are trying out mutants of Cavendish that are less susceptible to TR4.

But relying on Cavendish only cannot be a solution in the long run.

The need for sustainable solutions

If there is one lesson to be learned from the story of Gros Michel and Cavendish, it is this: we need a diversity of species and varieties. Don’t put all the eggs in one basket!

Or, in the words of Gert Kema, Professor of Tropical Phytopathology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands: 

“We need to deploy the rich biodiversity by generating a suite of new banana varieties, not just one. Monoculture is by definition unsustainable.”

And this is true not just for bananas. It applies to many crops, which rely on very few varieties only. This is the case with apples, too, as I explored in this article. And such was the case with the potato pest in Ireland which caused the Great Famine and mass emigration in the 19th century.

It goes on with our dependence on very few crops in general. Just three crops, rice, maize and wheat, provide 60% of the world’s calory intake.

And it continues with a narrowing diversity of our agricultural systems in themselves: Monocultures, fields with little space for other living beings (like insects, weeds, worms…), monotonous landscapes…

How long will we wait?

We tend to wait only until it is too late with finding lasting solutions. But investing in biodiversity eventually pays off. And, as people are, sometimes painfully, becoming aware, we just can’t go without biodiversity.

The environmental, social and economic consequences of our narrowing diversity are becoming increasingly visible (for example through high pesticide use in bananas and other crops, having to abandon banana plantations due to TR4…). Though most of the effects will show their signs in a more subtle, gradual way only.

As for the banana, it is not too late yet to find lasting solutions.

For us, as consumers, this might mean adapting to some unconventional, new tastes and to higher prices of bananas.

For banana farmers, this will have to involve a wider range of banana varieties to choose from and therefore moving to more sustainable, diverse farming practices.

And it will have to build on fair prices in order to ensure a sustainable future for all of us.

If you want to find out more about the cultivation of bananas and the current issues we are facing, here are some good resources for you:

www.promusa.org/

www.fusariumwilt.org

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Next week, I want to introduce you to my Guide on Eco-friendly Gardening. I’m already looking forward to it!

Also, I’m working on an article dealing with the question of genetic engineering, so stay tuned to find out more on the blog!