“Most people don’t know anything about bananas.” says by Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the World that Changed the World.
Banana seems to be in everybody’s kitchen and everybody’s bowl of cereals. The banana we eat is just one of over a thousand different banana breed. In United States, this “one” banana was not the first banana that Americans ate. The first banana was a totally different breed called Gros Michel and it went extinct mostly through neglect and banana industry’s stupidity. |
Bananas were basically unheard of in non-banana growing climates not until about 1875. By then, the banana industry begun with a couple of entrepreneurs starting a company called United Fruit. Their marketing strategy was to sell bananas for half the price of apples. Think about it, apples are grown everywhere in United States while bananas are grown thousands of miles away and go bad in two weeks. And yet by 1900, the banana industry had passed the apple and then never looked back. But the banana was immediately attacked by a fungus called Panama Disease, named after where it was discovered. The banana industry spent the next 50 years running away from this fungus. Until by 1960, the original Gros Michel banana was functionally extinct—couldn’t be grown commercially. The Cavendish was a last minute replacement. It was considered a bad banana, not tough enough that it had to be boxed instead of just throwing into a boat, it didn’t ripened properly, and it didn’t taste good. But finally Americans had to adapt it and the Cavendish took over the world’s banana market. Unfortunately, the lesson of Panama Disease which was “Don’t have a mono-culture—don’t put all your bananas in one basket if you’re a business.” was lost because it thought everything was going to be fine. 15 more years, a new version of Panama Disease has hit the Cavendish crop and it has been spreading for the past 10 years worldwide. Panama Disease is so virulent that if a person steps on a piece of infected dirt in Australia, flew plane to Costa Rica and walk through banana field, all of Costa Rica’s could be infected within a few years. It is really important because people rely on bananas and other parts of the world as their main source of nutrition. So when bananas get sick, people will die. Well, not really. But behind this is some real tragedy and real potential for tragedy.
Banana infected with Panama Disease
So what can regular Americans, people, can do?
1. To have a more open mind about genetic modification or GMO industry in United States; and
2. Support banana diversity.
1. To have a more open mind about genetic modification or GMO industry in United States; and
2. Support banana diversity.
So have a banana while you still can!