The future of bananas
DR. EMILE Frison, the Belgian scientist who heads the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain, has warned in a paper in the journal New Scientist that banana as a major food crop could be a thing of the past within a decade.
Jamaica has a long history of association with banana both as a local food crop and as an export commodity. And even now we are engaged in diplomatic efforts to protect the preferential European Union/UK market in the face of challenges through the WTO. The country has had for decades, a Banana Board charged with the responsibility of conducting research and development to support the cultivation of the crop. The late Ren Gonsalves did distinguished work in the development of new varieties. Dr. Jean Dixon, who is now Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Science, Technology and Commerce, cut her scientific eye teeth as a research scientist with the Board.
Banana worldwide is under increased pressure from diseases and pests. Fifty years ago, the highly prized Gros Michel variety was wiped out as a commercial product by a soil fungus. Today's varieties, such as the widely grown Cavendish, lack genetic diversity and are subject to fungal diseases like Panama Disease and Black Sigatoka which have reached global epidemic proportions. The fungi have developed resistance to fungicides which are proving increasingly ineffective against these diseases. "One thing we can be sure of," Dr. Frison said, "is that the Sigatoka won't lose this battle."
In a sense the banana is a victim of past scientific successes in creating new varieties, which were high-yielding and resistant to the diseases of the day, on a narrow genetic base, and the wide-scale use of fungicides to which the disease agents have now developed resistance.
Frison and his consortium of scientists see the salvation of the banana and of the economies which depend on the crop in the genetic engineering of new disease-resistant varieties starting from wild inedible bananas with seeds. The proposal faces resistance from the controversies over genetically modified foods. There is a lack of support from large producers who fear consumer rejection of a GM banana. It is not certain to what extent Dr. Frison's warning may have been influenced by the need to drum up support.
Our banana establishment must move to separate real risk from any attached scientific hype and to organise a response to the substantial threats that the crop now faces. Nor can we as a country ignore the larger questions of food security on a narrow genetic base of a few commercial varieties of major crops and the controversies over GM organisms and foods.
