I hope everyone enjoyed Betty Kearns' article and photos in the March MRFC newsletter as much as I did. In January Betty and Pete toured a banana plantation in Costa Rica, including its ultra-efficient processing facilities preparing the fruit for export. If you missed Betty's article, do catch it in the MRFC archive here.
Bananas were again a topic, this time for the second hour of the March 10 Diane Rehm show on NPR, available on iTunes or for direct download here. The title was “The Uncertain Future of the Banana”, and featured scientists Robert Bertram of the USAID and Randy Ploetz of TREC, as well as Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.
The program's headline story is the latest version of Panama disease, the soil-borne fungus Tropical Race 4. TR4 refers to the fungal strains of Fusaium oxysporum f. sp. cubense that cause Fusarium wilt in Cavendish cultivars grown in tropical conditions. In addition to the normally fungus-resistant Cavendish, TR4 affects a number of varieties of dessert and finger bananas, and is devastating commercial operations wherever it appears. It's been detected traveling halfway around the world on muddy boots, and its spread to all major banana-growing areas is considered inevitable.
There is no cure for TR4, and drastic techniques such as sterilizing the soil with methyl bromide (not a favored Druidic practice) provide only a couple of years of production before the soil is recolonized worse than before. Leaving land fallow is useless, as TR4 can survive below ground for decades. Conventional selective breeding for resistance looks hopelessly difficult for the seedless domesticated banana. Dr. Ploetz holds some hope for genetic engineering methods, but only time will tell whether they bring more rapid progress for bananas than for our beloved citrus.
The program has some interesting discussion of bananas and their commercial industry. Around 400 million people rely on bananas as a primary source of calories, and about the same number derive a significant part of their livelihood from its cultivation. In contract to the large-scale production methods of the Americas, around 95% of bananas in Africa are produced by small farmers.
The panelists agreed that Cavendish is not a great-tasting banana. Indeed in India, which has 600 varieties of bananas, it's called the “hotel banana” since only tourists want to eat it. It's inferior to the Gros Michel, which was the dominant commercial variety until the 1950's when an earlier edition of Panama disease destroyed its commercial value. Tasty or not, the Cavendish is the most productive commercial variety, accounting for half the world's banana production, and now it's on its way out.
The panelists had differing speculation about the future of the banana industry. Dr. Ploetz doubts that American consumers will accept higher prices for unfamiliar and less beautiful bananas, but Dan Koeppel was more optimistic. I am more in the latter camp, agreeing with Koeppel that just as apples are now accepted in several commercial varieties, bananas can diversify and still keep a space--- perhaps a lesser one--- on grocery store shelves. The major banana companies are well aware of the educational challenge before them: teaching Americans that many varieties need to be well-browned before reaching their optimal flavor. Enormous amounts of Cavendish are discarded from stores simply because they have a few brown spots.
Is TR4 a worry for us dooryard growers? Not much, as there are still plenty of good-tasting TR4-resistant varieties to choose from. Only in the kilos-per-hectare commercial world does “productivity” matter so much. The question is whether bananas will become one of the “rare” fruits we've named our club for.
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