Panama disease, an infection that ravages banana plants, has been sweeping across Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. The impact has been devastating. In the Philippines alone, losses have totalled $400 million. And the disease threatens not only the livelihoods of everyone in this $44-billion industry but also the 400 million people in developing countries who depend on bananas for a substantial proportion of their calorie intake.
Panama disease, an infection that ravages banana plants, has been sweeping across Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. The impact has been devastating. In the Philippines alone, losses have totalled $400 million. And the disease threatens not only the livelihoods of everyone in this $44-billion industry but also the 400 million people in developing countries who depend on bananas for a substantial proportion of their calorie intake.
However, there may be hope. In an attempt to save the banana and the industry that produces it, scientists are in a race to create a new plant resistant to Panama disease. But perhaps this crisis is a warning that we are growing our food in an unsustainable way and we will need to look to more radical changes for a permanent solution.
To understand how we got here, we need to take a look back at the history of the banana, and in particular the middle of the last century, when a crisis that had been growing for decades was threatening to bring down whole economies and leave thousands destitute. The banana was dying out.
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