Gone bananas

• Global heat records were broken three times in the space of a week (more below).
• Amazon deforestation slowed by a third in the first half of 2023.
• China opened up bomb shelters to help the public escape heat waves.

The Cavendish banana, the world’s most consumed fruit, is at risk of extinction due to  climate change, viruses and pest concerns. 

So what? The Cavendish’s decline is another flashing red light in a global food system that has ruthlessly prioritised convenience over resilience. Biodiversity in diets supports human health and reduces risk in food supply chains – but consumption is actually becoming more homogenous as the planet warms. Despite having 14,000 edible plant species to choose from, 90 per cent of calories consumed globally come from just 30.

By the numbers:

400 – million people around the world rely on bananas for 15 to 27 per cent of their calories, especially in low income countries.

95 – per cent of global banana exports are Cavendish – meaning that its supply chain is vulnerable to future climatic and geopolitical shocks and stresses. 

$25 billion – the value of the Cavendish banana market. Thousands of other varieties exist but struggle to match it for looks or nutritional value. 

We’ve been here before. In the 1950s, the Gros Michel (‘Big Mike’) banana variety dominated the world market until it was wiped out by a strain of Panama disease. The Cavendish survived but now a new strain of the disease – Tropical Race 4 (TR4) – is developing. When TR4 was discovered in Peru in 2021, the Peruvian government declared a national state of emergency. 

A bunch of issues:

• Diversity. Bananas are grown in a monoculture system, meaning that they are fed on a diet of pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilisers to survive. The Cavendish variety is seedless and so reproduces as genetic clones by taking cuttings from the stem. 
• Disease. The fruit is already exposed to a number of deadly diseases. TR4 is a fungal disease that obstructs water and nutrients from entering the banana’s roots, eventually killing the plant. 
• Drought. The El Niño Southern Oscillation intensifies extreme weather and drought in banana growing regions, which could lead to yield losses of up to 65 per cent, according to research. 

Dr Sebastien Carpentier, researcher at Belgium’s Bioversity International Musa Germplasm Transit Centre (ITC), the world’s largest collection of banana germplasm, told Tortoise: “There is no single solution. You could say okay, let’s genetically engineer them, but then 20 years later there’s another mutated strain that attacks them again.”

Carpentier and his team at the ITC are up against the clock to identify, document and preserve banana ancestors in Papua New Guinea – widely believed to be the home of the first domesticated banana, and one of few countries in the world that allow researchers to extract banana species for preservation and testing. Rising protectionism means some countries “would prefer that genetic resources are lost than give them to another country,” he said. 

Global collaboration on protecting banana species is poor, meaning that if Papua New Guinea shut up shop, the future of the banana will be left to chance. In the UK, that may mean finding a snack substitute, but for countries like Ecuador and Uganda it could spell economic and geopolitical disaster.

Split solutions. The Cavendish is set to share the fate of the Gros Michel. Scientists in Australia have genetically modified the Cavendish to resist the Panama disease and are awaiting approval from regulators. If given the thumbs up, it would be the world’s first genetically modified banana for commercial production and consumption. The EU is also seeking to relax restrictions on gene-edited crops. 

But the genetically modified variety of the Cavendish would also reproduce as clones, meaning that it could only be a short-term solution. 

Biodiversity is the alternative solution. Right now, the whole supply chain is curated to the Cavendish variety but that is increasingly untenable. Eating fewer and more diverse bananas – such as the Blue Java or Monzana varieties – might be the next best bet.

Further reading from Tortoise: Bananageddon