“From a business point of view it was a licence to print money, from an epidemiological point of view it was an outbreak waiting to happen”
More than 95% of international banana trade involves the Cavendish variety due to its sweet taste, long shelf life and farmer-friendly production process (ie profitability). But this unrivalled rule on the banana world will be what kills it. You see, living is somewhat like spelling epidmeligoical, surprisingly difficult; It requires a lot of money, and millions of people acquire said money through the banana trade. Seventy million people earn money from African bananas alone (Voora, Larrea and Bermudez, 2020), which is a huge amount considering Africa supplies only 3-4% of bananas worldwide. It’s clear that for revenue, the Cavendish was the way forward for the banana farmers of the world. That revenue is now at risk, because of one disease named “Tropical Race 4”.
Banana fanatics (bananatics) will already know this disease as it first started to spread in the 90s, and so they will naturally question why I am bringing it up now. I am bringing it up because the disease has now spread to Latin America, the world’s main supplier. This puts the Cavendish at serious risk of decimation, which could destroy the global banana trade, and plunge entire countries into poverty. The sale of bananas generates billions of dollars each year, with low estimates saying around 20 billion, and high estimates saying 140 billion. A loss of such a huge magnitude would send the world bananas! To put it into perspective, the transnational corporation Chiquita overthrew the government of Guatemala for what was worth roughly 200 million dollars.
Of course, with this much at stake, scientists are working desperately to find a solution, but not all are pursuing the same path in research. Scientists in Australia and the Netherlands are trying to breed a new variety that’s immune to the disease. Another group at the University of Cambridge are suggesting a new method of growing the bananas called grafting, but I do not understand it so here is the link to their article on it. Those in Taiwan are just breeding more Cavendishes, using natural selection to pick the next generation they use; I do not understand this either because Cavendish bananas aren’t bred, they’re cloned, but I will not provide an article this time. This is a newsletter, not an academic paper.
The disease itself is fairly slow-moving, so the end is not imminent, but it isn’t far either. Infected plants can be asymptomatic for months, meaning if a farm notices new infections, then the entire field has to be discontinued. Farms are using all sorts of methods to control the fungus, whether it’s bagging the banana as it grows, enforcing hazmat suits, or thoroughly cleaning all things foreign, these farms will not shut down easily.
We’ve seen this all before. 60 years ago, we witnessed the downfall of the once great “Gros Michel” banana. “Gros Michel” bananas, often translated as “Big Michael” (not to be confused with the famous grime artist Stormzy), were the original dominators of the market, before being driven close to extinction by the original disease, Tropical Race 1. Like in Creed 2, the match-up we see today is one that our ancestors witnessed before us. TR1 and TR4 are both also known as the “Panama Disease” and it is clear that this disease is a relentless serial killer. This means we must introduce more variety into the banana market if we want to have permanent bananas.
Random thought: Since our bananas are all clones, they all look the same, and therefore do not make good puppets.
Fun fact: Chiquita claimed their farms were worth one million dollars in their tax documents, and when the Guatemalan government tried to buy the farms for that exact amount, the value of the farms suddenly fluctuated to nineteen million dollars. Isn’t that lucky!
Carlos Welford 
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