The Curious Case of the Cavendish Banana
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| Fun fact! These bananas are genetically identical to all of the other bananas you have ever eaten in your life. |
So, I hate bananas. Like, absolutely hate them. The scent of them alone causes me to gag, and the taste is just revolting. I even hate that garish yellow that they come in. This fruit is my nemesis, and I truly mean that. Then I came across a chapter on the banana in “50 Foods that Changed the Course of History”, which I had been enjoying up until that point. My blood boiling, I stormed my way through the chapter. What I read completely changed my worldview.
According to the book, the bananas that you find in the store were not like the ones that your grandparents ate as children. Prior to the 1950s, the banana that was commonly eaten was the Gros Michel variety, as opposed to the Cavendish banana that you would find at grocery stores today. In the 1950s, the Gros Michel plants were struck with Panama disease, a fungus-based wilting disease that affects banana plants. The disease struck the Gros Michel hard; they were completely susceptible to the disease, and there was no known way to curtail it.
Scrambling for a solution, horticulturists came up with the idea to use the Cavendish banana instead. They were more resistant to the disease than the Gros Michel, and had other advantages to resellers, like a high yield rate and slower ripening time. It seemed like we would (unfortunately) save the banana.
However, there was a catch. Cultivated bananas are notorious for their inability to breed naturally, due to a lack of seeds. Therefore, Big Fruit had to resort to taking cuttings (placing a piece of the stem or root of the source plant in the soil), meaning that every banana you will ever eat is genetically identical to each other. In other words, they are all clones. This is pretty cool in the abstract, but it has some disturbing (or awesome, if you’re like me) implications. If all the banana plants in the world are genetically identical, then that means that there is next to no genetic diversity. Genetic diversity is how nature prevents extinction, as all it takes is one deadly pathogen to completely wipe out the entire population. And that looks like what’s going to happen now. According to the BBC, Panama disease has resurfaced in Colombia. It looks like the disease was able to surpass the resistance that the Cavendish had, and now the bananas are in grave danger, yet again. I hope that Panama disease can finish the job this time. *
*My criticisms and snide comments about bananas are purely facetious. I still hate bananas, but a lot of people depend on the banana industry for their livelihood or on bananas as a staple crop, so I don’t actually want bananas to go extinct.
I actually have heard about this before. I think its interesting that the bananas we eat are not even entirely natural and can not breed on their own. This may be wrong, but I read somewhere that the reason why artificial banana flavoring tastes nothing like an actual banana is because it was made to taste like the Gros Michel bananas. Since most people have never eaten that kind of banana, we don't relate the flavoring to the taste of bananas. Also wanted to mention that I love bananas and hope they don't become extinct!
ReplyDeleteI loved erading this. I've heard of it before too, but you framing it within your personal feelings about bananas was clever.
ReplyDelete*reading*
DeleteVery interesting indeed. I knew a little bit about the "banana crisis," but I didn't know all of its potential long term affects. Hopefully, out of concern for the economy of banana producing countries, a disease similar to that of Panama dose not completely wipe out the Cavendish banana.
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