Consider the banana. It's the most popular fruit in the West; we eat as many bananas as oranges and apples combined.
Botanically, the plant is a herb and the banana is a berry. It does not have seeds; to propagate it, the farmer takes a cutting from one plant and puts it into the ground. This means there's little genetic diversity, making the banana vulnerable to disease.
Bananas are grown in 100 countries; and 100 million people in Africa, Latin America, and Asia depend on them for food or income.
Though there are more than a thousand types, the main one farmed in great quantity for export to the West is the Cavendish, a cultivar developed in 1965 after an earlier variety farmed for export was destroyed by a fungus. Though considered inferior in taste, the Cavendish was immune to the fungus. Until recently.
Fungus attacked the Cavendish in 1990 in Malaysia and has been spreading since. The pathogen moves through the soil quickly, is incurable, and affects the plant's vascular system, killing it by preventing it from picking up water. It is now found throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and Africa.
Is there a solution?
Organic banana growing offers limited hope, as do strict agricultural quarantines and better controls to keep the fungus from spreading. And scientists are focused on finding or developing a new disease-resistant type that can replace the Cavendish … because that worked so well the first time.
Perhaps it's time to grow our own banana plants.
I'm Deborah Booth, and that's my perspective.
