The most interesting fruit in the world could go extinct
Bananas are one of the world’s most popular fruits. They’re a staple crop in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In the US, the average person eats more than 25 pounds of bananas per year.
The banana found in nearly every lunch bag, smoothie, and cereal is likely a Cavendish banana — a single variety that accounts for 99 percent of global exports — despite there being over 1,000 different species of bananas. This kind of uniformity is what allows the beloved banana to be cheap, durable, and ubiquitous.
It also makes them extremely vulnerable.
A variant of Panama disease, a soil fungus that once wiped out the world’s most commercial banana, the Gros Michel, in the 1950s, is back. And this time, there’s no obvious replacement for it waiting around the corner. So, what will it take to save one of the world’s most beloved fruits?
This video explores how monocropping became both a blessing and a curse in the search for the most commercially viable banana, how this assumed ubiquity could lead to the end of the banana as we know it, and what scientists are doing to prevent the extinction of the Cavendish.
Read more about the future of bananas:
- Yes, we have no bananas? (Again!) | US International Trade Commission
- The Most Interesting Fruit in the World | Freakonomics: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-most-interesting-fruit-in-the-world-ep-375/
- A Banana-Destroying Fungus Has Arrived in the Americas | Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/banana-destroying-fungus-has-arrived-americas-180972892/
- How superbananas can heal the world | TEDx Talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jOvgP76jy0
- Interpreting the 1954 U.S. Intervention in Guatemala: Realist, Revisionist, and Postrevisionist Perspectives | History Cooperative: https://historycooperative.org/journal/interpreting-the-1954-u-s-intervention-in-guatemala-realist-revisionist-and-postrevisionist-perspectives/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel
This video is presented by Stonyfield Organics. Stonyfield Organics doesn’t have a say in our editorial decisions, but they make videos like this one possible.