Climate Crisis Threatens the Banana, the World's Most Popular Fruit (theguardian.com) 78
The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world's most popular fruit, as almost two-thirds of banana-growing areas in Latin America and the Caribbean may no longer be suitable for growing the fruit by 2080, new research has found. From a report: Rising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid's new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World's Favourite Fruit.
Bananas are the world's most consumed fruit -- and the fourth most important food crop globally, after wheat, rice and maize. About 80% of bananas grown globally are for local consumption, and more than 400 million people rely on the fruit for 15% to 27% of their daily calories.
Bananas are the world's most consumed fruit -- and the fourth most important food crop globally, after wheat, rice and maize. About 80% of bananas grown globally are for local consumption, and more than 400 million people rely on the fruit for 15% to 27% of their daily calories.
Re:Decades ago (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Decades ago (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Nice link, but does not have any predictions of bananas becoming extinct. A quick duckduckgo search shows several popular articles with the word "extinct" or "extinction" in the title or teaser text, but reading the actual articles, they are only about particular cultivars of banana (most often Cavendish) being driven to "near extinction", and not about extinction of bananas in general.
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So what's your complaint, exactly?
My complaint is that the original poster claimed "Papers were written about how bananas would be extinct by 2020 due to Panama disease." A URL was subsequently given to support that statement, but the URL did not in fact support this statement, nor does a quick web search find any support for the statement.
That you don't believe that people like you have made the same dubious predictions in the past, that you do, now?
What is this prediction you are referring to as the "prediction that I do now"?
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It even mentions significant efforts in Tanzania to breed more disease, pest-resistant, and drought tolerant varieties of bananas. They main problem encountered so far being, apparently, they're not
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We used to eat the grouco (sp?) but we have been eating the Cavendish for about 45 years now. We clone them. So there is so little biodiversity that a blight can easily wipe out a species. Theres been a quest for the next banana for about 10years.
Re:Decades ago (Score:5, Informative)
The Gros Michel is the one which was essentially wiped out by Panama Disease, thus leading to the Cavendish. However, Cavendish is also susceptible to certain types of Panama disease fungus.
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Gros Michel's are still grown where they can be, if you are in the right zone you can try growing them yourself. I have been looking into this myself. Some places even sell the bananas online.
Of course this changes the meme to "It's one banana Michael, what could it cost, $10 ($17)?"
https://everglades.farm/produc... [everglades.farm]
https://miamifruit.org/product... [miamifruit.org]
Re:Decades ago (Score:5, Funny)
There's always money in the banana stand, Michael.
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(22 year spoiler alert)
The joke that the stand was literally filled with cash still gets me. A great episode ending.
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I didn't find it funny at all. I found the whole show painful. A bunch of stupid, awful characters. I mean, the title is on point.
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Different tastes for different folks. What's a good TV comedy to you?
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Rasmussen's Mark Mitchell commented on what they found in their polling: "In 20 years, the % of people who say the US is headed in the Right Direction has never been higher than today."
https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/right_direction_wrong_track_may12
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Guess its the plantains next. Lol.
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Papers were written about how bananas would be extinct by 2020 due to Panama disease.
url?
We've been constantly reminded that Panama Disease will likely wipe out large scale Cavendish banana farming in a few years, with the Beeb calling it a "Banana Pandemic" [bbc.com].
A killer disease turns up out of the blue. It moves by “stealth transmission”, spreading before symptoms even show. Once it takes hold, it is already too late to stop it – there is no cure. Life will never be the same again. Sound familiar?
Although this may sound remarkably like Covid-19, I am actually talking about Tropical Race 4 (TR4), a disease that affects bananas. Also known as Panama Disease, it is a fungus that has been rampaging through banana farms for the past 30 years. But within the last decade the epidemic has suddenly accelerated, spreading from Asia to Australia, the Middle East, Africa and more recently Latin America, where the majority of the bananas shipped to supermarkets in the global north come from. To date it is now in more than 20 countries, prompting fears of a “banana pandemic” and shortages of the world’s favourite fruit.
Scientists around the world are working against the clock to try to find a solution, including creating genetically modified (GM) bananas and a vaccine. But just like Covid-19, the question is not only if we can find a cure, but also how do we live with a “new normal” that will change bananas forever?"
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Long story short: if it still makes money, we will find ways to keep the market going.
That's kind of a tautology. If it still makes money, by definition the market is still going. If climate change destroys the market, it won't be making money anymore. The statement is true either way, but still mostly meaningless.
It also reflects a hyper-capitalist attitude: all that matters is that the market keeps going. Maybe some countries will have their economies devastated. It's happened before. Perhaps millions of people will suffer malnutrition. It happens all the time. But as long as the m
a taste of the good old days we're bringing back (Score:2)
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Papers were written about how bananas would be extinct by 2020 due to Panama disease.
Yes, but then we masked them, kept them six feet apart, and enacted banana-from-home, and they're saved.
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Not every identified risk reaches the worst case scenario. The lack of a catastrophic outcome in the prediction is not the same as there being no risk at all.
Capitalism isn't going to bail out the climate. By the time "rational actors" in the market respond to problems, they are too far behind. And ultimately business is a competition against your competitors. Doing better than your competition is often good enough, even as a market winds down and collapses. Add on top of that the very short term gains to b
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Panama disease did wipe out one type of banana completely. There's a reason why detection of disease in a banana results in what is usually the entire country (or region thereof) begin completely isolated.
The thing is disease control is easier than solving climate change.
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Mathematics of brown bananas (Score:1)
Why feed the vacuous sock puppets and by propagating their vacuous Subjects?
My personal beef with the bananas is that they apparently require more math than my wife is capable of understanding. She keeps buying too many bananas for us to eat on a timely basiis and I keep winding up being forced to desperately eat the overripe ones. I should have taken a picture of yesterday's brown beauty... Yeah, I know one solution would be banana bread, but she doesn't do bread and I don't have any kitchen privileges...
It's right to keep fighting (Score:1)
Keep responses to obvious climate trolls short and sweet. Call out idiots and move on.
We're past the stage of letting things slide, these guys aren't going away. So at the very least make it clear that their ideas are stupid and they are stupid for repeating them.
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I keep winding up being forced to desperately eat the overripe ones.
Technology to the rescue! [slashdot.org] Now you have another 12 hours! "The banana, developed by Tropic, a biotech company based in Norwich, is said to remain fresh and yellow for 12 hours after being peeled and is less susceptible to turning brown when bumped during harvesting and transportation."
United Fruit still exists. (Score:1)
polla pequeña (Score:2)
I've only a little ways into Duolingo (almost done with section 3), but una chica means a girl, so Chiquita is little girl.
You're maybe thinking of "chico", which is literally boy or kid but as an adjective can also mean small, kind of a metaphor somewhat like saying kid-sized.
I usually go with pequeña or poco for small, little bit, etc. Because that's what I hear the most, but I am not fluent in Spanish, so take that with a grain of salt.
Re:polla pequeña (Score:2)
Monoculture (Score:2)
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I almost wonder if some of this is intentional so that in a year or two the farmers can be sold a new banana tree engineered not to experience all of these problems.
Yes, obviously this was a plan formulated at the discovery of Panama Disease in 1876 with the mustache twirling heavies of our piece smirking as they exclaimed, "in 150 years, we strike! Those fools won't know what hit them!"
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Oh, here the Coconut Rhinocerus Beetle is starting to develop a taste for Bananas after they wipe out all the Coconut Palms.
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The reason they're a clone is it's the only way to obtain seedless fruits. Those things can't use sexual reproduction.
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Perhaps if bananas weren't largely a monoculture rife with clones
The current most popular cultivar is the Cavendish, which is a cloned monoculture. This has some benefits: it means they're consistent in size, shape, and growth patterns, and they're seedless.
There are many other varieties of bananas [wikipedia.org], but most of them don't travel well. Bananas produce ethylene gas, which causes the bananas and other fruits to ripen faster, not desirable in fruits shipped long distances and then expected to last several more days. Maybe Cavendish bananas have a relatively long shelf life
At long last... (Score:3)
We will no longer need to fear the banana.
Bananas propagate easily (Score:2)
Rabbits get eaten by wolves, but we still have rabbits.
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In addition, thanks to shifting climate conditions in the Americas, we may be able to grow them easily en masse within U.S. borders. Take that tariffs!
Neglect to mention (Score:2)
Doesn't matter it's dead anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
The Cavendish banana, the one you find in nearly every supermarket, is under serious threat from a disease called Tropical Race 4 (TR4), a strain of Fusarium wilt (aka Panama disease).
Why it’s a problem:
– Cavendish bananas are genetically identical clones, so one vulnerability = total vulnerability.
– TR4 infects the plant's roots, survives in soil for decades, and has no cure.
– It’s already devastated crops in Asia, Australia, Africa, and Latin America—including Colombia, a major exporter.
This is the same kind of disease that wiped out the Gros Michel banana (the Cavendish’s predecessor) in the mid-20th century.
Researchers are trying to breed or gene-edit resistant varieties, but if TR4 keeps spreading, the Cavendish could go the way of its tastier, extinct cousin.
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Good Night (Score:2)
The reason they're a clone is it's the only way to obtain seedless fruits. Those things can't use sexual reproduction.
Well, that, and the chip in each banana.
Good bananas follow orders.
And as far as global warming, just yesterday
there was an article about sea rise.
With AI and global warming,
it is no longer hard to "wreck-a-nice-beach".
Remember, kids:
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
Yes, we will have no bananas.
Good night, Mrs. Cavendish,
wherever you are...
Oh good (Score:2)
Maybe we can start growing bananas in Texas by then.
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By 2080 we can have banana farms in Seatle and vineyards in British Columbia.
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By 2080 we can have banana farms in Seatle and vineyards in British Columbia.
There are lots of vineyards in British Columbia, especially in the Okanagan Valley [okanaganwines.ca], and some of them are really quite good. The difference will be that by then they will be growing cabernet, zinfandel and tempranillo instead of pinot noir and riesling.
Banana Popularity (Score:1)
1). I had no idea that bananas are so popular.
2). I don't like bananas.
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Not mentioned here (and rarely in any article about the Fusarium wilt) is that a majority of world banana production are the non-desert vegetable bananas called plantains, about 60% of world production which are not susceptible to the disease. These are ignored because they are mostly consumed in-country and are not sold internationally on a large scale. The world desert banana crop is almost all sold internationally -- it is the common banana of trade.
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2). I don't like bananas.
Good. More for me then.
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I miss my banana phone.
indomitable banana spirit (Score:1)
When we run out of bananas... (Score:2)
Yes, we have no bananas! (Score:3)
The famous song with the chorus "Yes, we have no bananas" was written in response to the 1950s disease that resulted in the demise of the then-dominant Gros Michael banana, which is why the Cavendish is the dominant banana sold now. The Cavendish could fall victim to the same problem.
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The famous song with the chorus "Yes, we have no bananas" was written in response to the 1950s disease that resulted in the demise of the then-dominant Gros Michael banana, which is why the Cavendish is the dominant banana sold now. The Cavendish could fall victim to the same problem.
No it wasn't. It was published in 1923 [wikipedia.org], a few decades before the commercial decline of the Gros Michel. And although a Wikipedia editor stuck in that claim in the article, citing people popping off in the media with this very same assumption not based on evidence, it still isn't true.
The song appears unrelated to international banana market conditions although absolutely everyone seems to want to make it so. The lure is so strong that the existence of the song is used to backdate the actual decline in Gros
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The Cavendish is also a mostly tasteless thing. Yes, if you need food, it will serve. But I do not buy them. It is in the process of going away though, unless anybody finds a way to stop the disease (a fungus, I believe). Might take another 50 years though and most people cannot think in those timespans. There are smaller banana variants and they generally taste better. Worse for feeding people though.
Well, these are some more undenuiable, but still quite benign climate change effects. And many people still
Meh (Score:1)
So you're saying we have at least 55 years to find or breed a variety that's better suited to what the Chicken Littles say the climate is going to be like then? Whatever shall we do?!
Seriously, we've already switched banana varieties once because the one we were eating was nearly wiped out. It's not even a slight worry that we can't do it again.
Scale (Score:2)
What will become the new universal scale of the internet?
NOT the forth most important food crop (Score:2)
>>Bananas are the world's most consumed fruit -- and the fourth most important food crop globally, after wheat, rice and maize.
This sounded wrong to me so I looked it up and it is in fact quite wrong. Either by tonnage produced or by dollars generated, bananas aren't even in the top 10 food crops. After rice, maize (corn) and wheat comes soybeans, potatoes, tomatoes, sugarcane, grapes, apples and onions.
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Interesting. Maybe the story was written with AI that wanted the author to feel important. I hear OpenAI is working in that direction now, i.e. if you cannot deliver quality or truth, at least stroke the ego of your user: https://slashdot.org/story/25/... [slashdot.org]
We are so fucked (Score:2)
Beachfront homes washing away? I don't live near the beach. Fuck them.
Many airports are just above sea level. Refineries. Ports. All those things that actually do affect you.
Bananas varieties going extinct? I don't even like bananas. Fuck them.
Except that beef yields are down, rice is getting more arsenic, and a host of other problems facing our food supplies. It's even worse in the Middle East, where wars break out because of droughts. China, Pakistan, and India are fighting over water too: three
It's a CONSPIRACY! (Score:2)
They've secretly been powering all the nuclear power plants with bananas! They want to keep doing so, and in 2080 there will be more nuclear power plants, so all the bananas will go there.