The Extinction Of The Banana 

By Benjamin Rudoy

 

     In 1970, the apple was the most commonly consumed fruit in America.  But in 2010, the apple was no longer the most consumed fruit, it became the banana.  Americans today eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined and the US spends seven billion dollars on the importing of bananas from Latin America and Asia, collectively.  The point is that Americans have now found their favorite fruit.  The banana is very healthy as well as tasty, too.  At only 110 calories per 4-ounce serving, they contain little fat. They are high in vitamin B6, which helps fight infection and is essential for the production of heme, the iron-containing part of hemoglobin. They are also rich in potassium (more than 400 mg per banana) and are a great source of fiber. Studies have shown that bananas help combat warts, depression, and morning sickness as well as lowering the risk of heart attacks and even cancer.

 

     This fruit may be in trouble, however.  Bananas are grown when a piece of an existing banana crop is cut off and a new banana plant is grown that is a clone of the parent.  This makes the banana sterile and also lacks genetic diversity achieved through sexual reproduction, making the banana very prone to disease.  Once a disease is discovered, it can spread through the entire population and wipe out entire species of bananas.  This is what happened to the Gros Michel banana in 1950, the most popular banana consumed at the time.  A variation of Panama disease wiped out the Gros Michel banana but the Cavendish was immune.  That is the most popular consumed banana today.  

 

      Now a disease is sweeping through the bananas of Asia and Australia,  a strain of fungus known as the 4th strain of Panama Disease or Tropical Race 4 (TR4).  The soil-borne fungus enters through the roots and cannot be stopped by fungus-killing chemicals.  This disease is spreading now to commercial plantations of bananas and it could be devastating to the entire banana market.  If the disease somehow spreads to Latin America, the Cavendish may go extinct.  The spread of this fungus doesn’t mean the end of bananas as we know it, but it may cause banana republics or countries that make most of their profit on bananas, to start growing a different type of banana (immune to the fungus) that may not be as tasty as the Cavendish but don’t worry, we’ll still have our most favorite fruit, the banana.