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Could Our Favourite Fruit go Extinct?
The common banana
Think you know a lot about the common banana? Or, if you know nothing about about the world’s favourite fruit ….. read on.
In my twenties, I lived and worked in Papua New Guinea for two years. During my stint in this tropical and very wild country, one of my favorite foods was the banana — for two reasons: (1) they were cheap. A bunch still on the vine sold for a little as a dollar and (2), I loved the taste and the diversity.
Before arriving in New Guinea, I was not aware there were over one thousand different verities of banana in the world with 264 of them growing in New Guinea.
The most common banana on the globe is the Cavendish and therein lies the problem. This lack of diversity has placed the banana on the endangered species list. Bananas like the human race are facing a pandemic. The culprit? A nasty tropical fungus called Tropical Race 4 or more commonly, the Panama Disease.
It is the banana of choice in all the non-banana growing countries around the world and for this reason many of the banana growing countries have reduced the diversity of their banana crops and are focusing on the Cavendish.
The same lack of diversity caused the Irish potato famine in late 1800s. Whereas other countries created diversity in…
