No bananas?
05/12/15 05:31
OK, here is more about bananas than you want to know.
Bananas were first introduced in the United States at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of America in 1876. At the exposition, they sold for 10 cents apiece, a significant price for the times. Within a few years, there were regular shipments of bananas from Costa Rica to New Orleans and the fruit was distributed from New Orleans around the US. The fruit became popular around the country.
There are over 400 varieties of bananas grown around the world, but there are few which produce a profit when shipped over long distances. Here in the United States we have come to associate the Cavendish variety as the only type of banana. If you travel to Costa Rica, however, you will discover that Cavendish bananas aren’t very popular with the locals. A smaller, sweet banana and a very small sweet variety are probably the most popular bananas in Costa Rica. Also grown and consumed are plantain, which are a cooking banana. Cavendish are for export.
What made the long distance distribution of bananas possible was the development of varieties that would ship well. In the 1800’s large plantations were springing up in many countries around the equator. The huge farms cleared large patches of ground and planted a single variety of banana, the Gros Michel. Although they are called trees, banana plants are actually perennial herbs. The “trunks” are really tightly wound leaf. In the late 1880’s, a fungus called Panama Disease, first appeared in Australia. The fungus jumped from continent to continent and within a few decades the Gros Michel variety was decimated and there was too little production to support the distribution networks. It began to look like bananas as a world-wide fruit were doomed.
That is when the Cavendish variety was developed. Large companies like Dole and Chiquita developed cutting edge (for the time) science to essentially clone plants. The similar plants allowed for the companies to control for consistency while producing massive amounts of bananas at low cost. The new plants produced very few imperfect fruit. With each banana looking and tasting like the other, supermarkets were willing to sell the fruit because customers could learn what to expect. The Cavendish are creamy and consistent in texture, but compared to the smaller and sweeter varieties, their flavor is not very significant.
But they sell. and they produce large profits for the plantation companies.
There is a problem, however. Like the Gros Michel before it, the Cavendish is subject to plant disease and pests. Because the plants are all the same, there is virtually no resistance to disease. A disease that affects one plant will affect all of the plants.
About 50 years ago, in Southeast Asia, Tropical Race 4, a fungus that is a more potent strain of Panama Disease, began to attack Cavendish plants. It has now spread to other parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia. It is only a matter of time before it comes to Central America. The way in which the fruit are grown in Central America makes the crop especially vulnerable to the disease. When it comes, the existing crop will not be able to cope with or evolve to defend itself against the fungus.
Like the Irish Potato Blight of the 1800s, the world is facing a banana blight within a decade or so. Entire plantations will fail. Even if the big companies pack up in one region and move to another, the disease will follow.
When we were children we used to sing the song, “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” It grew out of the decimation of the Gros Michel bananas. We probably should keep in practice, because we are about to face another worldwide shortage, this time in Cavendish bananas.
The development of the Cavendish strain didn’t address the problem of fungus attacking banana plants. Even though the Cavendish was resistant to the strain of Panama Disease that decimated the Gros Michel crop, what occurred was the replacement of one monoculture with another. Huge plantation agriculture is especially vulnerable to disease. What is needed is not a new variety of banana - the world already has 400 varieties. What is needed is a different way of raising the fruit for commercial markets.
Although we don’t eat many bananas at our house (a subject too long for a single blog), we are aware of the banana market because we have close ties with our sister church in Costa Rica. And Costa Rica is the largest exporter of bananas to the United States. Chances are that the bananas in the grocery store came from Costa Rica. The plantation method of growing bananas is a factor in the Costa Rican economy and one of the factors that keeps wages low and working conditions poor in that country. We have a small relationship to a coffee cooperative that grows coffee together with plantains in the southern part of the country. The fungus won’t affect their plants and the cooperative will continue to consume the plantains for food for workers and area families while exporting the coffee for profit.
Bananas do a lot of traveling. Not only do our bananas travel from Costa Rica, but there are countries that export to markets even farther away. Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, ships around the world, with a significant amount of the fruit going to China. Chinese companies play a huge role in the Ecuadorian economy in a similar way that US companies play a big role in the economy of Costa Rica.
You don’t need to start hoarding bananas right away. The pipeline from Costa Rica is running full at the moment. The fungus hasn’t yet reached Central America. But it is not a question of if the fungus comes, only of when it will come. For now bananas are inexpensive and readily available in the supermarkets.
If you like bananas, however, and if you live in a city where they can be found, try out some of the more exotic varieties available. Minis are sweeter and delightful fruit. Plantains are good for baking and cooking with a variety of other foods. Red bananas and manzanos are great to eat raw, add to salads, or bake in breads. These varieties do not appear to be subject to the fungus.
If we don’t change our ways of producing and consuming bananas, we may be singing, “Yes, we have no bananas,” for years to come.
Bananas were first introduced in the United States at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of America in 1876. At the exposition, they sold for 10 cents apiece, a significant price for the times. Within a few years, there were regular shipments of bananas from Costa Rica to New Orleans and the fruit was distributed from New Orleans around the US. The fruit became popular around the country.
There are over 400 varieties of bananas grown around the world, but there are few which produce a profit when shipped over long distances. Here in the United States we have come to associate the Cavendish variety as the only type of banana. If you travel to Costa Rica, however, you will discover that Cavendish bananas aren’t very popular with the locals. A smaller, sweet banana and a very small sweet variety are probably the most popular bananas in Costa Rica. Also grown and consumed are plantain, which are a cooking banana. Cavendish are for export.
What made the long distance distribution of bananas possible was the development of varieties that would ship well. In the 1800’s large plantations were springing up in many countries around the equator. The huge farms cleared large patches of ground and planted a single variety of banana, the Gros Michel. Although they are called trees, banana plants are actually perennial herbs. The “trunks” are really tightly wound leaf. In the late 1880’s, a fungus called Panama Disease, first appeared in Australia. The fungus jumped from continent to continent and within a few decades the Gros Michel variety was decimated and there was too little production to support the distribution networks. It began to look like bananas as a world-wide fruit were doomed.
That is when the Cavendish variety was developed. Large companies like Dole and Chiquita developed cutting edge (for the time) science to essentially clone plants. The similar plants allowed for the companies to control for consistency while producing massive amounts of bananas at low cost. The new plants produced very few imperfect fruit. With each banana looking and tasting like the other, supermarkets were willing to sell the fruit because customers could learn what to expect. The Cavendish are creamy and consistent in texture, but compared to the smaller and sweeter varieties, their flavor is not very significant.
But they sell. and they produce large profits for the plantation companies.
There is a problem, however. Like the Gros Michel before it, the Cavendish is subject to plant disease and pests. Because the plants are all the same, there is virtually no resistance to disease. A disease that affects one plant will affect all of the plants.
About 50 years ago, in Southeast Asia, Tropical Race 4, a fungus that is a more potent strain of Panama Disease, began to attack Cavendish plants. It has now spread to other parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia. It is only a matter of time before it comes to Central America. The way in which the fruit are grown in Central America makes the crop especially vulnerable to the disease. When it comes, the existing crop will not be able to cope with or evolve to defend itself against the fungus.
Like the Irish Potato Blight of the 1800s, the world is facing a banana blight within a decade or so. Entire plantations will fail. Even if the big companies pack up in one region and move to another, the disease will follow.
When we were children we used to sing the song, “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” It grew out of the decimation of the Gros Michel bananas. We probably should keep in practice, because we are about to face another worldwide shortage, this time in Cavendish bananas.
The development of the Cavendish strain didn’t address the problem of fungus attacking banana plants. Even though the Cavendish was resistant to the strain of Panama Disease that decimated the Gros Michel crop, what occurred was the replacement of one monoculture with another. Huge plantation agriculture is especially vulnerable to disease. What is needed is not a new variety of banana - the world already has 400 varieties. What is needed is a different way of raising the fruit for commercial markets.
Although we don’t eat many bananas at our house (a subject too long for a single blog), we are aware of the banana market because we have close ties with our sister church in Costa Rica. And Costa Rica is the largest exporter of bananas to the United States. Chances are that the bananas in the grocery store came from Costa Rica. The plantation method of growing bananas is a factor in the Costa Rican economy and one of the factors that keeps wages low and working conditions poor in that country. We have a small relationship to a coffee cooperative that grows coffee together with plantains in the southern part of the country. The fungus won’t affect their plants and the cooperative will continue to consume the plantains for food for workers and area families while exporting the coffee for profit.
Bananas do a lot of traveling. Not only do our bananas travel from Costa Rica, but there are countries that export to markets even farther away. Ecuador, the world’s largest exporter of bananas, ships around the world, with a significant amount of the fruit going to China. Chinese companies play a huge role in the Ecuadorian economy in a similar way that US companies play a big role in the economy of Costa Rica.
You don’t need to start hoarding bananas right away. The pipeline from Costa Rica is running full at the moment. The fungus hasn’t yet reached Central America. But it is not a question of if the fungus comes, only of when it will come. For now bananas are inexpensive and readily available in the supermarkets.
If you like bananas, however, and if you live in a city where they can be found, try out some of the more exotic varieties available. Minis are sweeter and delightful fruit. Plantains are good for baking and cooking with a variety of other foods. Red bananas and manzanos are great to eat raw, add to salads, or bake in breads. These varieties do not appear to be subject to the fungus.
If we don’t change our ways of producing and consuming bananas, we may be singing, “Yes, we have no bananas,” for years to come.