The ‘pandemic’ destroying the world’s favourite fruit

The banana equivalent to Covid-19 is spreading to new

countries, forcing the industry to change how the world’s
most widely eaten fruit is farmed and even how it could
taste.

Although this may sound remarkably like Covid-19, I am

actually talking about Tropical Race 4 (TR4), a disease that
affects bananas. Also known as Panama Disease, it is a fungus
that has been rampaging through banana farms for the past
30 years. But within the last decade the epidemic has
suddenly accelerated, spreading from Asia to Australia, the
Middle East, Africa and more recently Latin America, where
the majority of the bananas shipped to supermarkets in the
global north come from. To date it is now in more than 20
countries, prompting fears of a “banana pandemic” and
shortages of the world’s favourite fruit.

Scientists around the world are working against the clock to

try to nd a solution, including creating genetically modi ed
(GM) bananas and a vaccine. But just like Covid-19, the
question is not only if we can nd a cure, but also how do we
live with a “new normal” that will change bananas forever?
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 The rst place to look for clues is the origin of the modern
banana that we all recognise. Its history shows just what
happens if this disease is ignored.

This is not the rst time bananas have faced wipe-out,

explains Fernando García-Bastidas, a researcher in plant
health who studied TR4 at the University of Wageningen in
the Netherlands before moving to a Dutch plant genetics
company trying to tackle the disease. In the 1950s the
industry was decimated by what he describes as “one of the
worst botanical epidemics in history”, when Panama Disease
rst hit. The fungal disease originated in Asia, where it co-
evolved with bananas, before spreading to the vast plantations
of Central America.
The reason it was so devastating, says García-Bastidas, was
because the bananas were all one variety, the Gros Michel or
‘Big Mike’. The cultivar was chosen by the burgeoning banana
industry because it produces large, tasty fruit that can be
cut from the tree unripe, making it possible to transport a
highly perishable, exotic food long distances while it continues
to ripen. Each plant was a clone of roughly the same size and
shape, produced from suckers – lateral shoots that develop
from the rootstalk – making it easy to mass produce. It
means each banana plant is genetically almost identical,
producing a reliably consistent fruit crop. From a business
point of view, it was a licence to print money, but from an
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epidemiological point of view it was an outbreak waiting to
happen.

The banana production system was weakly founded on the

limited genetic diversity of one variety, making them
susceptible to disease, says García-Bastidas. You would have
thought the industry had learned its lesson. You would be
wrong.

The search began for a variety to replace the Gros Michel

that might be resistant to Panama Disease. By the 1960s, one
cultivar, the Cavendish, showed signs of resistance that could
save the banana industry. Named after the 7th Duke of
Devonshire, William Cavendish, who grew the plant in his
greenhouse in Chatsworth House (there is still one there
today), the banana could also be transported green – though
it had a blander avour than the Gros Michel. Within a few
decades it had become the new genetic clone for the banana
industry and remains so today. But for scientists nervously
watching the vast, expanding plantations, it was just a matter
of time before there was another outbreak.

Sure enough, in the 1990s a new strain of Panama Disease

known as TR4 emerged, again in Asia, that was lethal to
Cavendish bananas. This time, with a globalised economy
where researchers, farmers and other visitors to banana
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 plantations can y around the world, it spread even more
quickly.
García-Bastidas, who completed his doctorate on TR4 at the
University of Wageningen, describes the modern banana
disease, which attacks the plants vascular system causing
wilting and death, as a “pandemic”.

“Bananas are undeniably among the most important fruits in

the world and are a major staple food for millions of
consumers,” he says. “We cannot underestimate the impact the
current TR4 pandemic could have on food security.”

It was García-Bastidas who spotted TR4 outside Asia for the

rst time, in Jordan in 2013. Ever since he has been “crossing
his ngers” that it would not hit developing countries, where
bananas are a staple food. But it is already in Africa, after
being spotted in Mozambique.

The reason TR4 is so deadly is because, just like Covid-19, it

spreads by “stealth transmission”, albeit on different
timescales. A diseased plant will look healthy for up to a year
before it shows the tell-tale signs of stained yellow, wilting
leaves. In other words, by the time you spot it, it is too late,
the disease will likely have already spread via spores in the
soil on boots, plants, machines or animals.
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García-Bastidas, who is originally from Colombia, knew that
TR4 would get to the hub of banana production in South
America eventually.
In 2019 his worst nightmare came true – the call came in
from a farm in Colombia. Banana plants were showing wilted
yellow leaves and wanted to send him samples.

“It was like a bad dream,” he says. “One minute I am on the

farm, the next in the lab, the next explaining to the
Colombian government minister that the worst has happened.
For a very long time I could not sleep well. It was heart-
breaking.”

Like every other country with TR4, Colombia is now trying to

slow the outbreak as the world nervously watches for signs
of the disease in the rest of Latin America and the
Caribbean. Since there is no cure, all that can be done is to
quarantine the infected farms and enforce biosecurity
measures such as disinfecting boots and preventing the
movement of plants between farms. In other words, the
banana equivalent to washing your hands and social
distancing.

In the meantime the race is on to nd a solution.

In Australia, scientists have developed a genetically modi ed

(GM) Cavendish banana that is resistant to TR4. The Bill and
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 Melinda Gates foundation is also supporting ongoing
transgenic research. However, despite strong scienti c
evidence that GM foods are safe, the banana is unlikely to be
on a supermarket shelf near you anytime soon as regulators
and the public remain suspicious.

For García-Bastidas, who now works at research company

KeyGene in close collaboration with the University of
Wagengingen, GM is an “easy x” that may solve the problem
for ve to ten years, but does not tackle the heart of the
problem, which is an entire industry based on a single cloned
variety of plant.

Tests are only just being developed to track TR4 as bananas

have suffered from less research funding than other staple
crops.
Instead García-Bastidas wants to introduce more diversity
into the banana crop so that it is more resilient to outbreaks
of disease like TR4. He points out there are hundreds of
bananas with the potential for cultivation around the world.
Why not use them? Already in countries like India, Indonesia
and the Philippines people eat tens of different varieties of
bananas, all of which offer different tastes, smells and sizes.
But they are dif cult to grow and export on the scale of the
Cavendish, which has been bred to withstand transport across
the oceans.
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At his lab in the Netherlands, García-Bastidas and his
colleagues are using the latest techniques in DNA sequencing
to identify genes resistant to TR4 and breed bananas that
may be able to withstand the disease, as well as being
commercially viable.

“We have hundreds of varieties of apples,” he points out.

“Why not start offering different varieties of bananas?”

The best hope is for a resistant banana for export to emerge

in the next ve to 10 years. But it is not a silver bullet. After
facing not one, but two pandemics in the last century, this
time the banana industry has to look at more than just
introducing another clone.

Dan Bebber, associate professor of ecology at the University

of Exeter, has spent the last three years studying the
challenges to the banana supply system as part of a UK
government-funded project BananEx. He says the best way
for the banana industry to survive TR4 is to change how
bananas are farmed.

At the moment the Cavendish bananas are grown on a vast

monoculture, meaning not just TR4 but all diseases spread
fast. During one growing season, bananas can be sprayed with
fungicides from 40 to 80 times.
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“That could have huge impacts on the soil microbiota,” says
Bebber. “To look after bananas you have to look after the
soil.”

Bebber points to reports from the Philippines that organic

farms have fared better against TR4 because the microbiota
in the soil are able to ght the infection. He says banana
farms should be looking at adding organic matter, and
perhaps planting seasonal crops between rows to increase
shelter and fertility, using microbes and insects rather than
chemicals as “biocontrols” and leaving more wild patches to
encourage wildlife. This may mean bananas cost more, but in
the long term they will be more sustainable.

According to Bebber bananas are too cheap at the moment.

Not only because the environmental cost of a chemical-heavy
monoculture has not been taken into account, but the social
cost of employing people on very low wages. The charity
Banana Link, which campaigns on the issue, blames the
supermarkets for a “race to the bottom” that has forced
prices lower and lower, compromising the environment,
workers’ health and ultimately the health of the banana crop.
Fairtrade bananas have gone some way to ensuring workers
are paid a fair price for bananas, but Bebber says workers
across the industry are beginning to demand better pay.
Again, he says this feeds into TR4 as workers need to be paid
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fairly to ensure the farms are better managed for disease
prevention.

“For years we have failed to take into account the social and
environmental cost of bananas,” he says. “It is time to start
paying a fair price, not only for the workers and the
environment, but the health of the bananas themselves.”

Jackie Turner, a US-base d lmmaker, who has been

questioning how bananas are farmed since she worked on a
plantation as a student, agrees the solution lies in fairness
and diversity.

In her lm Bananageddon, she talks to the scientists trying

to stop the spread of TR4, the food security experts warning
of shortages and the workers on the plantations concerned
for their livelihoods.
“TR4 is a lot like Covid-19 in that there is no treatment for
it,” she says. “It is a ‘doomsday’ scenario for bananas.”

After travelling the world for two years to see the impact
TR4 is already having, Turner is convinced bananas need to be
farmed in a different way, which means introducing new
varieties.
She says this will not only be better for the environment and
protect against disease, but could be better for the consumer
too.
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To try to encourage the public to support smaller farmers
growing different varieties she has set up the Banana List.
This lists the shops selling different varieties of bananas so
that consumers can see what they like and start creating
demand. For example, Dwarf Red, that tastes a little like
raspberries, Lady Fingers, that are smaller and sweeter than
Cavendish, or Blue Java, that tastes like vanilla ice-cream. The
bananas are not only delicious but will help create a diverse
kind of farming more resilient to disease.

For Turner, the banana pandemic could have positive outcomes

if it forces us to farm bananas in a more environmentally
friendly way and to eat a more diverse range of fruit.

“Maybe we eat fewer bananas and we pay more for them,”

she admits. “But you know what, they will be better bananas.”