A new study reveals that bananas could be on the road to extinction as the virulent banana-killing Panama disease has moved from East and Southeast Asia and is spreading on a global scale; since 2013, the fungus has ravaged crops in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia. It is now clear that the strategies to contain the spread of Panama disease are failing since the fungus cannot be killed, and it is only a matter of time before it reaches Latin and Central America, which supplies 82% of the world's bananas, with Ecuador the major global grower, providing over a third of the growing export market. The study, published today by Nature Ecology & Evolution, shows how the pathogen spreads through infected banana plants via their roots or rhizomes, where they grow into underground tubers.
A new study reveals that bananas could be on the road to extinction as the virulent banana-killing Panama disease has moved from East and Southeast Asia and is spreading on a global scale; since 2013, the fungus has ravaged crops in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia. It is now clear that the strategies to contain the spread of Panama disease are failing since the fungus cannot be killed, and it is only a matter of time before it reaches Latin and Central America, which supplies 82% of the world's bananas, with Ecuador the major global grower, providing over a third of the growing export market. US food researcher, Dan Koeppel, points out that if "Australia can't slow this disease down for its own domestic banana crop, how is it going to happen in places less organised, less wealthy and less able to implement the measures Australia is trying to implement?".