Bananageddon: Deadly fungus decimates global banana crop

Yes, We Will Have No Bananas

By DAN KOEPPEL

Published: June 18,

The final piece of the banana pricing equation is genetics. Unlike apple and orange growers, banana importers sell only a single variety of their fruit, the Cavendish. There are more than 1,000 varieties of bananas � most of them in Africa and Asia � but except for an occasional exotic, the Cavendish is the only banana we see in our markets. It is the only kind that is shipped and eaten everywhere from Beijing to Berlin, Moscow to Minneapolis.

By sticking to this single variety, the banana industry ensures that all the bananas in a shipment ripen at the same rate, creating huge economies of scale. The Cavendish is the fruit equivalent of a fast-food hamburger: efficient to produce, uniform in quality and universally affordable.

But there�s a difference between a banana and a Big Mac: The banana is a living organism. It can get sick, and since bananas all come from the same gene pool, a virulent enough malady could wipe out the world�s commercial banana crop in a matter of years.

This has happened before. Our great-grandparents grew up eating not the Cavendish but the Gros Michel banana, a variety that everyone agreed was tastier. But starting in the early 1900s, banana plantations were invaded by a fungus called Panama disease and vanished one by one. Forest would be cleared for new banana fields, and healthy fruit would grow there for a while, but eventually succumb.

No, Seriously. Save the Bananas.

By PAUL B. BROWN

Published: August 13,



A two-pronged frantic race is under way to save the banana.

It's no joke, as Popular Science reports in a fascinating account this month. The Cavendish, the version of the banana that rests on top of American breakfast cereals, is "on a crash course toward extinction."

A fungus dangerous to the Cavendish was discovered in Asia 13 years ago and has since "wiped out plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Taiwan and is now spreading through much of Southeast Asia," Don Koeppel writes.

It is inevitable, the experts say, that the fungus will eventually wipe out Cavendish bananas worldwide.

"ShepherdsDog" said
This is the second big die off for commercial bananas

"DrCaleb" said
This is the second big die off for commercial bananas