A Future With No Bananas

New Scientist ^ | 5-15-2006

[blam]

A future with no bananas?

11:00 13 May 2006
From New Scientist Print Edition.

Go bananas while you still can. The world's most popular fruit and the fourth most important food crop of any sort is in deep trouble. Its genetic base, the wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India, has collapsed.

Virtually all bananas traded internationally are of a single variety, the Cavendish, the genetic roots of which lie in India. Three years ago, New Scientist revealed that the world Cavendish crop was threatened by pandemics of diseases such as that caused by the black sigatoka fungus. The main hope for survival of the Cavendish lies in developing new hybrids resistant to the fungus, but this is a difficult and time-consuming task because the seedless modern fruit does not reproduce sexually and has to be bred from cuttings.

Now the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers' varieties are also disappearing. It could take a global effort to save the bananas' gene pool.

In fact many of the genes that could save the Cavendish may already have been lost, says NeBambi Lutaladio, a plant scientist at the FAO's headquarters in Rome, Italy. One variety that contains genes that resist black sigatoka survives as a single plant in the botanical gardens of Calcutta, he says.

[blam]

The Cavendish is the banana most of us are familiar with.

[TheBigB]

"Yes, we have no bananas..."

[Revolting cat!]

[Slump Tester]

If the UN says so, then it MUST be true!

Is it Bush's fault, or just the EVIL United States in general?

[bronxboy]

The world is falling. It's Bush's fault. It's global warming. Basically it is all the US of A's fault.

[FormerACLUmember]

The magic of Entrepreneurial Capitalism will solve this problem, without any doubt whatsoever.

[roaddog727]

I kinda like the hybrid mix of "Plantain x Cavendish". Tougher skin and not as sweet when ripe. But that's just me.

[doctor noe]

This is terrible. What will the public schools give the students for condom training?

[eyedigress]

I recall Geraldo saying we would lose all of our banana pickers here in the U.S. if we sent the illegals back to Mexico.

I prepared myself for the worst then. :^)

[hedgetrimmer]

It could take a global effort to save the bananas' gene pool.

I am sure that companies that produced the Cavendish variety have already done so. They had to breed their bananas with other bananas to get their varieties in the first place. Why do you suppose the UN wants to get involved? Everything they do has a (nefarious) purpose, as we have seen.

[Denver Ditdat]

x42 could probably make himself available, but only for the girl's classes.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Didn't this already happen about eighty years ago to the Gros Michel banana?

[HangnJudge]

Yes, we have no bananas...

No bananas in Scranton PA.
http://www.harrychapin.com/

Sorry... one of my favorite songs

[Paleo Conservative]

Yes we have no bananas.

[llevrok]

Michel banana

I went to high school with Michelle Banana.

[A CA Guy]

A Future With No Bananas

Could this be the one way to get our President to stop monkeying around on immigration?

[Tenniel]

Cucumbers, doc. Or maybe (can't have any self-esteem damage now, can we?) zucchini.

[in hoc signo vinces]

Plenty of bananas left in the Gene pool in the US...Howie Dean, Babs Boxer, Steve Colbert, Bill Mahr, Harry Reid, Diane Fienstien...jeeeezzzz...we've basically got the market cornered on fruits and nuts.

[Shadowstrike]

Maybe the UN wants to get involved so they can control the import / export of bananas?

Why couldn't it be something like broccoli that is in danger of being extinct?

[KarlInOhio]

The President has ignored my call for a Strategic Banana Reserve where the government buys hundreds of tons of bananas for future use if our banana supplies are cut off.

I forsee warehouses full of bananas in all of their golden..uh, yellow and somewhat spotty, ... uh, black and mushy goodness.

[HarleyLady27]

the year 2023:

"Mommy what is that yellow pill on my plate?"

"It's your banana pill....back when I was a little girl we used to have real bananas"

"Mommy what is that red pill on my plate?"

"It's your meat pill....back when I was a little girl had used to have real meat"

[Yossarian]

No more bananas?

Could this be the pivotal event that inspires the monkeys to take over, ala "Planet of the Apes"?

[dighton]

Noooooooooooo!

[Osage Orange]

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030308/food.asp

[Osage Orange]

1960's

[opinionator]

The banana is proof of intelligent design. If the banana disappears, so does god.

[opinionator]

Brilliant minds think alike.

[Mad Dawg]

Bush's fault.

I'm stuned that no one has said that until now.

[Revolting cat!]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... bananas!

[Centurion2000]

One variety that contains genes that resist black sigatoka survives as a single plant in the botanical gardens of Calcutta, he says.

Well put up a damn greenhouse then and have it colonize other greenhouses.

[hedgetrimmer]

Why bananas?
• Bananas (including plantain) are the
developing world’s fourth most important
food crop (after rice, wheat and maize) in
terms of gross value of production.
• The crop is grown in 130 countries
throughout the tropics and sub-tropics.
• More than 85% of global banana
production is produced by small-scale
farmers for home consumption or for sale
in local and regional markets.
• Bound for export or local markets, the
banana is an essential source of foreign
exchange, domestic income and means to
alleviate poverty.
• Bananas are used as a staple for 70
million people in Africa.

Bananas are grown in 130 countries? The more involved the UN becomes the deeper it gets its claws into a country. If it could hold some power over the fourth most important foodstuff for developing countries, what havoc it could wreak. The UN food for sex scandals in Africa, come to mind.

[doctor noe]

Ah yes, Mrs. Wormer, cucumbers are very sensuous.

[jpl]

Does this mean we can look forward to a future with no Banana Republics?

[Seamoth]

Urban legend. http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/bananas.asp

[Tribune7]

It could very well be there is a crisis. Or maybe not. I wonder if the mothers of those in the scientific community ever read to them as childre "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and Chicken Little.

[bigfootbob]

As soon as we alter the gene pool some FOOL ELF terrorist will firebomb the university or private lab and try to destroy the work.

I think I'll go have a piece of the wife's chocolate chip/banana bread.

[monkapotamus]

[ndt]

"The banana is proof of intelligent design..."

Actually he is sort of correct, but not at as he intended. The wild bananas have little in common with the domestic verity he uses in that video. The domestic banana and all its "signs of intelligence" is a product of human design.

[Liberal Bob]

Will this wipe out the banana republics?

[wireman]

A Future With No Bananas

I thought the article was about curing my slice...

I was ready to go out and buy another driver!

[ndt]

"Will this wipe out the banana republics?"

No, their economies are now mostly based on overpriced causal wear in earth tones.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Thanks, I know it happened sometime back during the dark ages before I was born. :)

Apparently it isn't extinct either. Just very rare.

[saganite]

Mommy, what's that green pill on my table?

It's soylent green.

What's soylent green mommy?

IT'S PEOPLE! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

[HEY4QDEMS]

Dam, I was just saying to my wife the other day that my life is so boring that I buy green bananas just so I have something to live for.

Now what the hell am I supposed to do?

[HarleyLady27]

OMG....that is good!!!!! ROFLMAO

[Senator Bedfellow]

[freekitty]

Someone wants more money

[mtbopfuyn]

No more banana cream pie! No more banana pudding! No more banana bread! No more banana splits! Life just isn't worth living without bananas.

[BobS]

HEH! That one needs a condom!