Disease threatens world’s bananas

The UN warned of the potential “massive destruction” of the world’s €3.6bn-a- year banana crop as a plant disease spreads from Asia to Africa and the Middle East.

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation said the TR4 strain of Panama disease, which has already hit tens of thousands of hectares in Southeast Asia, had been reported in Jordan and Mozambique.

The disease is “posing a serious threat to production and export” of bananas, the fourth most important food crop for the world’s least developed countries and a key revenue source for poor farmers, FAO said.

There is no cure for TR4, which particularly affects the Cavendish variety that accounts for 47% of world banana production — by far the biggest.

The disease affects the trees, but not the bananas themselves and the only solution is to cut down the trees, dig trenches between trees to prevent its spread, and impose strict quarantine measures.

Top producers in Latin America, including the world’s main producer Ecuador, have not been affected, but FAO warned there was a “potential” risk.

“I think it’s sheer luck. It’s not a question of whether it will arrive but when. There’s no prevention,” said Gert Kema, director of the banana research programme at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who manages the website panamadisease.org