World: Banana disease emergency: there should be no panic - expert
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned banana growers that a fungal disease is spreading through crops from Asia to Africa and the Middle East. The UN agency says the disease has the potential to spread to Latin American crops. There is no treatment for the fungal disease and its spores can remain in the soil for decades, so the Food and Agriculture Organization says it is focusing on preventing it from spreading. Bananas are the world’s eighth most important food crop and the fourth most important one in developing countries. The answears of Mr. Fazil Dusunceli, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Officer.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned banana growers that a fungal disease is spreading through crops from Asia to Africa and the Middle East. The UN agency says the disease has the potential to spread to Latin American crops. There is no treatment for the fungal disease and its spores can remain in the soil for decades, so the Food and Agriculture Organization says it is focusing on preventing it from spreading. Bananas are the world’s eighth most important food crop and the fourth most important one in developing countries. The answears of Mr. Fazil Dusunceli, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Officer.
The largest banana exporters are Ecuador, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Colombia.
Costa Rica declared a ‘banana emergency’ last December due to an outbreak of insects that left bananas eatable but not suitable for exporting.
So, does all that mean that we’ll have to ‘bid farewell’ to bananas in the foreseeable future?
That is not the case, because many institutions around the globe are working on this problem and we hope that we will develop resistant cultivars. But until we develop resistant cultivars we have to focus on preventive measures. We have to prevent the spread of this disease.
This is manageable. I don’t think we should panic, but we should act to prevent the further spread of this disease.
Reports say that there’re nearly 1,000 banana varieties. Are they all under threat?
Some part of them is not, of course, especially those in Africa. There are quite a number of them which can resist the disease and they have to be used in breeding programs to develop new resistant cultivars, which are acceptable for consumers and for the market place.
The major issue currently is that the international trade depends on a single variety, which is Cavendish. The Cavendish variety is susceptible to this disease. So, the international trade is greatly at risk.
Were there similar situations before? And if yes, how were they solved?
Yes! The current challenge is that the disease has a new race and the Cavendish variety is susceptible to this race. Previously, there used to be another race, race-1 of this disease. I would say about 60 years there used to be a variety Gros Michel. And that race infected Gros Michel and this variety was wiped out from the world mostly because of that.
At that time this Cavendish variety has been developed as a resistant one against that race. And this Cavendish variety has been protecting banana plantations all around the world from this particular disease for decades.
And the challenge now is that this Cavendish variety has become susceptible, or the new race appeared and is affecting this variety, which is called TR-4 race.
So, this is a good example. But this takes time – developing and deploying resistant varieties. That process can take quite a number of years or even a decade. And until that time we have to focus on prevention measures.
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