
How the global banana industry is killing the world’s favorite fruit - primroot
http://qz.com/164029/tropical-race-4-global-banana-industry-is-killing-the-worlds-favorite-fruit/
======
hoggle
"But the GMO lightning rod distracts from the larger cautionary tale: Our
reliance on monoculture to feed surging global populations is catching up with
us."

A lot of old true-to-seed breeds of plants with diverse sets of attributes
(like e.g. being more resistant to certain environmental conditions) haven't
been cultivated for economic reasons and consequently have become extinct by
now.

There are some enthusiasts trying to preserve those old breeds by running
seed-banks but they have a hard time to do so even here in Europe because of
corporations like Monsanto and their heavy lobbying trying to outlaw this
movement.

Arche Noah:

"In the past 100 years we have lost about 75 percent of agricultural diversity
worldwide."

[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.arche-
noah.at%2Fsortenerhaltung%2Fwozu-vielfalt&edit-text=)

Related - I was just posting on this topic on the Red Delicious thread which
popped up on the HN frontpage:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8301185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8301185)

Edit: I can't see why this gets downvoted, it is clearly on-topic and
relevant.

~~~
atlantic
I don't understand the downvotes either. The only way I can explain them is
that there are certain categories of debate on HN which instantly attract
large numbers of trolls intent on suppressing certain avenues of discussion.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Few first minutes after submission of a comment is usually quite random and
often you get downvotes Out Of Frakkin Nowhere. Fortunately, the reason
usually catches up after a while and situaction rectifies itself. It's usually
best to just ignore initial downvotes.

~~~
atlantic
In a general way, I would agree with you. However, my experience has been that
topics such as Israel/Palestine, GM and 9/11 attract an unusual amount of
attention from astroturfer types (by which I mean exceptionally opinionated
people who have not logged into the site for months or years, and have never
made a contribution to a technical discussion).

~~~
TeMPOraL
You might be right, but I usually still don't care about it. Topics like that
usually have a higher bar for thoughtful comments, but the ones that manage to
get over that bar are still visible and discussed. Astroturfers are annoying,
but then again karma is just random Internet points; what matters to me more
is if a comment manages to start a discussion involving other HNers posting
interesting insights.

~~~
derefr
Karma isn't just random Internet points (in fact, that purpose of karma is
pretty irrelevant and one's global "karma score" could just as well be removed
without consequence.) The real point of voting is that it sorts comments, so
that the dross of a conversation can fall below a certain line and you can
stop reading the conversation before that line. Astroturfers negate the value
of sorting, such that you have to read (or at least skim) the dross if you
want to find the good comments.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, I guess I don't trust greying-out that much or am just curious, but I
tend to skim the heavily down-voted comments anyway. Every now and then, one
can find a pearl of wisdom in them.

------
zorrb
For anyone who's in interested in learning more about bananas, overthrowing
governments and installing puppet dictators (before it was cool!) told in a
true fast-paced rags-to-riches tale I highly recommend the book: "The Fish
That Ate the Whale". So, so good.

~~~
venus
Thanks for the recommendation! Bought.

Probably more than 50% of the books I buy come from recommendations on HN, and
I've been rarely disappointed.

------
megablast
Fun fact: if you have ever have those small banana lollies, they taste quite
different to bananas now. That is because they were created during the time of
the Gros Michel, the old type of banana.

And all bananas are cloned from the same variety, one reason this virus is
such a concern.

~~~
mcherm
> And all bananas are cloned from the same variety, one reason this virus is
> such a concern.

Did you read the article? One of the MAIN POINTS of this article was that this
oft-repeated 'fact' is untrue. That, in fact, only a small portion of bananas
are Cavendish grown for export, and that the non-cavendish (not cloned)
bananas are also vulnerable to this fungus (not virus).

~~~
benaiah
Actually, the article explains that 60% of Cavendish fruits are eaten locally
- farmers grow the strain due to its high availability and very high yields.
It's not "all bananas", but the Cavendish does have a vast majority, both
locally and in export.

------
bane
Fun fact, wild bananas are tiny and full of seeds. There's a lot of money
being spent sequencing and understanding bananas in order to fight this kind
of problem.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48150458/ns/technology_and_science...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48150458/ns/technology_and_science-
science/t/smart-bunch-scientists-unpeel-bananas-genome/#.VBCtGmSwIhw)

Because of how domesticated bananas are reproduced, it's a good lesson on the
problems with monoculture.

~~~
noonespecial
We grow one of these strains in our back yard here in southern Florida. You
can't peel them and eat them like a "regular" banana, but you can slice the
fruit from around the seeds (in the middle) and make some awesome banana bread
the taste of which is quite simply impossible to achieve with store bought
bananas. My kids say they taste "way more banana-y" than the ones from the
store.

~~~
electromagnetic
It could just be because you're harvesting them when ripe, similar to how
tomatoes grown in your garden seem to have 10 times the flavour as the store
bought ones.

However, I wouldn't rule out a difference in the actual flavour being a big
factor too.

~~~
oftenwrong
This site has a lot of info about ripeness and growing bananas in general. It
is practically obligatory when banana-related articles come up.

[http://webebananas.com/culture.html](http://webebananas.com/culture.html)

>Maturity and ripeness are two different things. Mature bananas may be picked
green and will ripen off of the tree. This is how all commercial bananas which
you purchase in the supermarket are done. Immature bananas will not ripen
properly. Hanging time on the tree, to achieve maturity is different for each
variety. I have ripened Kru fruit after only 6 weeks hanging time. However, my
first bunch of Saba fruit required 11 months on the tree before ripening.

>Color change is evidence of ripening. Different varieties have different
shades of yellow when ripe. Once again, becoming familiar with your particular
variety is crucial.

>Knowing when to pick your bananas is the final step in enjoying your harvest.
I approach each new variety this way: when the first hand (not the flower)
appears, (this is the most important step) I write the date on the side of the
stalk with a felt pen. After 6 months, if they have not shown any color
change, I cut off the top (oldest) hand, and allow it to ripen (usually in a
couple weeks). If it is OK, I continue removing hands as I need them.
Eventually the rest will ripen on the “tree”.

------
junto
Across the western world, parents with small children are panicking!

Across Latin America are panicking because their entire livelihoods are
threatened by this.

FYI: Bananas are a parents goto fruit when your child is hungry and needs
something healthy that is bulky and quick.

~~~
mogrim
> FYI: Bananas are a parents goto fruit when your child is hungry and needs
> something healthy that is bulky and quick.

And portable with its own wrapper, doesn't stain, easy to wash out of clothes,
and perhaps most importantly: it isn't green :)

------
sampo
The banana cultivar we usually eat is the Canvendish Banana. This cultivar is
propagated asexually so in a sense all of the banana plants are of the same
clone. Attempting to fight the fungus with genetic engineering is extra tricky
because of this, because the banana plants do not reproduce.

But maybe someone finds a way. Anyway, I want to remind how papaya cultivation
in Hawaii was almost wiped out by a virus disease, but they did some genetic
engineering in the 1990's, and after that everything has been fine.

[http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-
news/pap...](http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/sections/news/local-news/papaya-
gmo-success-story.html)

Well, Europe still bans the import of GMO food. But at least everyone else
gets to eat Hawaiian papaya.

~~~
sebastianavina
it's amazing how the human can make a plant like the banana and maize evolve
to fulfill our needs

~~~
rpenm
You could also say that we have evolved to fulfill the plant's needs (ie.
genetic propagation).

~~~
robmcm
No, this has mostly been done in a single human generation. We haven't evolved
during the evolution of the plants.

------
acd
Mono culture where you clone one banana so all other bananas are exactly the
same is by design stupid. Imagine you have a disease, compare it to a computer
virus. Now exactly all other computers are running the same software, there is
a virus that attacks them, all computers are knocked out in one blow. This is
how the banana industry are handling it at the moment with cloning.

Plus previous scandals Dole dumping poison on their workers
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas!*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas!*)

~~~
hereonbusiness
Windows, the IT world's Cavendish banana.

~~~
dalke
CP/M, the IT world's Gros Michel?

------
sirgawain33
We don't eat bananas anymore in our house, largely for the reasons outlined in
the article.

The thumbnail summary: bananas only started being widely consumed in the 1960s
because of heavy marketing efforts by Central American railroad builders (they
had to do something with the land along the sides of the newly built
railroads, and bananas happened to fit).

They are heavily chemically treated, more than any other fruit. They've been a
monoculture almost since Day 1.

Oh, another fun fact, those little stickers on bananas? They were one of the
first examples of 'branding'

I didn't find this article all that well written or informative. I recommend
Chapman's _Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World_

I also happened to read John McPhee's _Oranges_ at the same time. The contrast
between the orange (an ancient fruit, widely consumed, hardy, with a rich
literary tradition) and the banana is stark.

Both books, by the way, are great little studies in technology business.
Techno-optimism, marketing, PR, globalization, manic CEOs; it's all there.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Oh, another fun fact, those little stickers on bananas? They were one of the
> first examples of 'branding'

Not even close. Craftsman's marks -- the original trademarks -- are pretty
much the original form of branding, and predate banana stickers by by probably
on the order of a couple thousand years.

~~~
jacquesm
Brand relates to an old Northern European word still in use today. Brand in
Dutch and German means fire, the marks were burned into cattle, products and
anything else that needed a hard to remove label.

~~~
dragonwriter
That's all true, but somewhat beside the point. Yes, that's the _etymology_ ,
but most of those aren't examples of the _meaning_ being discussed, but are
instead owner's marks, rather than origin marks.

------
NamTaf
Related: DamnInteresting did a great article on the history of the banana and
its reproductive quirks. It taught me about the historical species of banana
that we no longer eat!

[http://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-
of-t...](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-unfortunate-sex-life-of-the-
banana/)

------
induscreep
Doesn't Big Banana invest in GMO stuff to make them resistant to a well known
disease?

~~~
scythe
> Doesn't Big Banana invest in GMO stuff to make them resistant to a well
> known disease?

It's very hard to genetically modify a plant that doesn't produce any seeds!
Can bananas produce seeds? Yes, apparently:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease#The_response](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease#The_response)

It is an ongoing research project. The Gros Michel itself is not gone; there
are a number of plants still living, but currently they are trying to deal
with the strange banana chromosomes: bananas have three chromosomes -- an odd
number!

~~~
whyenot
> It's very hard to genetically modify a plant that doesn't produce any seeds!

Huh? Gene modification in plants is almost always done on individual cells
that are then grown into fully-differentiated plants using tissue culture
techniques. There are well established protocols for this. Bananas are
routinely grown from tissue culture.

Here is an example of a genetically modified banana:
[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/here-come-the-super-
bananas](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/here-come-the-super-bananas)

~~~
bduerst
Depends on the method. Gene guns work best with embryonic tissue, which is
found in the seeds. The Agrobacteria method can use just about any tissue, but
doesn't work for all plants.

That article talks about them applying for clinical trials, but I'm pretty
sure they don't have the carotene transformed banana plant yet (unless it's
unpublished).

------
lbsnake7
If it does go to South America, USA might be screwed. America imports all of
it's bananas, Chile mostly. Hawaii makes a negligible amount that I think
never even leaves Hawaii.

Side note, I've been interested in fruits, and the fruit trade so I've been
trying to find out more information about how it all works. It is hard. Pretty
much any hard data that comes out is from the USDA, no private entity does any
sort of research or tracking of the movement of fruits. Farmers either don't
care about that sort of stuff to do it on their own, or aren't technologically
advanced enough to try and do it themselves.

~~~
nickhalfasleep
"Pacific Fruit Express" and "The Great Yellow Fleet" are great books on the
railroad technology development to provide produce West-to-East. The fast-
trading of ripening fruits were redirected several times on their trip east
via telegraph commands.

------
scott_karana
I recently learned about the Breadfruit[1] at the National Tropical Botanical
Gardens on the island of Kaua'i.

Apparently, the Polynesians gave up the cultivation of rice (from their native
Taiwan) and cultivated the breadfruit instead wherever it grew.

The NTBG is trialing the use of breadfruit to combat starvation in tropical
nations[2]: hopefully, in the event of a Bananapocalypse, breadfruit could
help alleviate the loss.

1
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadfruit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadfruit)

2 [http://ntbg.org/breadfruit/](http://ntbg.org/breadfruit/)

------
mcv
"scientists haven’t yet found a viable back-up banana to sub in for the
Cavendish"

What? But what about the Goldfinger? I thought that was Race 4 resistant
(Wikipedia seems to agree:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfinger_banana](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfinger_banana)
), as well as tastier than the relatively bland Cavendish.

------
higherpurpose
I don't know if they contain as much protein and whatnot, but I found peaches
give me a similar "satiated" feeling if I eat them in the morning (in case
you'll need an alternative fruit soon).

~~~
atmosx
There are dozens of foods that can substitute a banana in the Mediterranean at
least.

Banana's do not have proteins. Generally speaking proteins can be found in
meat. Banana has 0% cholesterol and big quantities of Potassium and Magnesium
which help considerably with muscles (e.g. heart). That's their _main benefit_
nutrition-wise.

Avogado, spinach and sweet potato (boiled/natural) has bigger amounts of
Potassium.

~~~
latch
_Banana 's do not have proteins. Generally speaking proteins can be found in
meat._

A banana has ~1g - 1.5g of protein. By dried weight, it's a lower % of protein
than a lot of other fruits. I admit it isn't much (it's about as much protein
as 1 teaspoon of peanut butter).

Almost _everything_ has protein in it. You get your recommended daily intake
of protein at around 9 large baked potatoes.

~~~
atmosx
Yes... I was referring to quantities... Bananas are mostly used for potassium,
nutrition-wise.

Anyway, you're right proteins can be found virtually everywhere.

------
guard-of-terra
I think we should be hitting with all our fury at this fungus that threatens
to eat _our_ bananas.

Because as far as I know it also threatens a lot of diverse plant life,
especially rare species and living fossils.

~~~
mcv
> it also threatens a lot of diverse plant life, especially rare species and
> living fossils.

Yeah, but can you eat those?

------
novalis78
so, when do we see bananas in places like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1QXCnC-2h4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1QXCnC-2h4)

