People all over the world love bananas. Even in countries where they don't grow, people pay more to have their share of their favorite banana. Everyone loves that banana they grew up with. Time after time, the banana fruit has been planted the same way as it has always been used to. And that's why it is a problem.
Virtually every grocery store or supermarket would have a Cavendish banana on that shelf ready to be picked. It is a strain often chosen for its easy cultivation and consistent hardiness. In the 1950s, it was competing with Gros Michel, a comparable variety of banana which was then wiped out by a strain of fungus that dwells in the soil of Panama. It was then known as the Fusarium fungus, a blight that causes the banana to turn black from inside out.
Once the fungus has infected the plantation, there was no way the fruits can be saved. Sadly, even after decades since the big wipeout, the pores of the fungi hang around in the soil, with the highest risk of infecting crops all over again. Now, the Agriculture and Fishing Institute of Colombia has yet again declared an emergency and put 170 hectares of land under quarantine.
When crops get infected, there is always that risk of people losing their livelihood. But when it involves Cavendish bananas, the problem of crop infection becomes even more alarming. The reason for this is simple. It is a kind of banana that is dependent on a genetic clone, producing what seems like a monoculture that is exceptionally vulnerable to a crop epidemic.
However, this does not mean all types of bananas are to be infected. There are other good varieties and their genetic diversities lend themselves to something critically important: defenses against diseases. More importantly, the research and development projects concerning bananas, especially those for expert become too open for an attack. Everyone loves bananas and the industry wants to make sure that everyone is able to get a bunch of yellow bananas every time they feel like it.
This huge commercial pressure has put a lot of farmers at risk to overcompensate. But if the risk for this fungus to grow and kill those Cavendish bananas for good, as it now threatens to do, agricultural scientists must be able to find out another variety that will serve as its replacement. They will need to cultivate an alternative that will have almost the same genome sequences as that of the Cavendish, only this time, it will be resistant to the fungal infection. Whether it can survive the attack remains to be a question, though scientists are hopeful that they will be able to develop a crop that could.
