The Banana Is One Step Closer To Disappearing

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A fungus that has wreaked havoc on banana plantations in the Eastern Hemisphere has, despite years of preventative efforts, arrived in the Americas.

ICA, the Colombian agriculture and livestock authority, confirmed on Thursday that laboratory tests have positively identified the presence of so-called Panama disease Tropical Race 4 on banana farms in the Caribbean coastal region. The announcement was accompanied by a declaration of a national state of emergency.

The discovery of the fungus represents a potential impending disaster for bananas as both a food source and an export commodity. Although bananas produced in infected soil are not unsafe for humans, infected plants eventually stop bearing fruit.

No known fungicide or biocontrol measure has proven effective against TR4. A previous form of the fungus nearly eradicated the global supply of the Gros Michel banana, which was then the only banana exported to the United States and Europe back in the 50s. The more bland Cavendish that is used today was marketed as the Gros Michel replacement.

Read more at NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.

{Matzav.com}


7 COMMENTS

  1. The headline is sensationalistic, exaggerating and misleading.

    If people are still worried, they can make a special kinnus tefillah and say Tehillim for the bananas.

  2. Bananas are a wonderful food – enclosed in an easy to remove wrapper, perfect as a baby’s first food, has nutrients like potassium in it. It would be a terrible thing for mankind not to be able to have bananas.

  3. The shidduch crisis, parnasah crisis, housing crisis….now the banana crisis??!!!

    How many gezeiros can people bear??!!!

    P.S. Think – did your elter zeides and bobbehs in der alter heim have bananas every day? No, it is an American thing.

    • Actually my grandparents and all of the other people I knew who came from the alter heim were a lot more likely to eat bananas on a constant basis than anyone American born who I know .

      I’m old enough to remember when eating pizza was controversial in some frum circles.

      Sushi was universally looked at as say plantain. Which frum people are interested in eating plantain even today?

  4. This is a terrible crisis now before Rosh Hashanah. What siman will we be able to replace Bonne-Aannée with for a Good Year?

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