3/15/08

Bananas going ?


Tri-O's
Oddities, observations, and opinions By Herb Kandel

Last week I gleaned the “to read” e-mail from the spam on my computer. After deleting all the pixels notifying me I was the heir to vast Nigerian bequests and entreaties for enlarging body parts I found an interesting one from a friend. It extolled the benefits of eating bananas. The nutritional values are said to be numerous and the report maintained they helped maladies such as Depression, PMS, high blood pressure, hangovers, ulcers, and even warts, to name a few. For all I know it may be the true elixir of life. What a wonderful way to remedy and maintain health -- ingesting the delicious yellow fruit shaped like a comma!

Then I heard an interview on NPR‘S program “Fresh Air”. Host Terry Gross was talking with Dan Koeppel, who spent three years researching and writing “Banana, The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World”. He claims that the banana may be an endangered fruit in the next 10 to 20 years.

Facts: Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. It is a seedless, sexless fruit that does not really reproduce but is a genetic duplicate of the next generation, in essence what the world eats are clones. The same type banana, the Cavendish, is the same in Europe and China as it is here. Since they all are genetically the same they are susceptible to the same blights. There was a another strain of bananas, Gros Michel (Big Mike), that was obliterated in the 1960’s by a soil fungus which attacks the roots, called Panama disease. Another fungus, black Sigatoka, is a leaf fungus which also destroys the plant.

The same fate may be in store for the Cavendish, says Koeppel. More about this later.

Millions of people rely on the fruit for sustenance. Here we may regard it as a snack or a sliced addition to our breakfast cereal, but in Africa and other parts of the world it is a staple (in Uganda the word for “food” and the one for “banana” are the same). After rice, wheat, and milk, bananas are the fourth most beneficial food in developing countries as an excellent source of carbohydrate, fiber, vitamins and minerals. It is estimated that 500 million poor people, from Brazil to Indonesia, would be adversely effected if “Yes, we have no bananas” were to become a reality.

It is uncertain as to how bananas evolved or where they developed. Some claim, in translations of the Bible, that it was really a banana that Adam was tempted with by Eve (maybe that snake knew about nutrition). But in recent times whole Central American countries had their fates dependent on the fruit. The United Fruit company mushroomed (so to speak) in that part of the world. Its influence played into politics, industry, labor, and overthrew governments in banana republics.

Koeppel is now shining the spotlight on genetic engineering and warning about the fruit’s demise. Without genetically modified (GM) harvests this food source would be eliminated. There is a rush now to save the Cavendish or morph it into another strain by developing them in test tubes since it has no seeds or pollen and is therefore sterile. A team of scientists inserted a gene from rice which they say provides protection for the banana from black Sigatoka with no danger to humans or the environment. According to them the GM banana reduces the need for pesticides. However the Panama fungus is still to be reckoned with. Organic bananas sold in the West are grown without pesticides but the yield is greatly reduced.

Some opponents of GM consider it “frankenfood”, and there are other nay sayers who contend the situation is not dire. They are almost as adamant as those folks who claim that global warming is a hoax. Indeed, even the sources at Snopes.Com (an investigative site exposing urban legends) maintain that there are other disease control alternatives such as “the development of plants resistant to the main diseases, the employment of friendly bacteria, fungi, and other micro-organisms”. They recognize the threat of a banana plague but feel it is not imminent and that it can be avoided with strict enforcement that prohibit of the export of pathogen infected soil and banana suckers to new plantations and growing fields.

It is a strong case that Koeppel makes about the threat of extinction being real. In addition to the above information about science, genetic codes, political intrigues, and globalization, he also looks into the banana trade, marketing, cultural aspects, injustices with violence, historical lethal events in the harvesting and transporting, and economic imperialism.

Who knew that this iconic golden fruit, which has so much to offer the world, has such a history and who’s future is now a mystery? Certainly not I. But if I don’t slip on a banana peel Koeppel’s book will be my next read.

http://www.baldwincountynow.com/articles/2008/03/15/columnists/doc47daeaf1c08e1843317824.txt