Spread of disease threatens Latin American banana crop A disease spreading among banana crops worldwide have some sounding the alarm for a potential “bananageddon.” One of the world’s most destructive banana diseases spread recently from Asia to Africa and the Middle East. The concern for North American markets is that the disease has the potential to effect countries in Latin America, thereby compromising banana supplies here. Over 80% of the world’s banana exports come from Brazil and other South and Central American countries. While other strains of the disease have existed for many years, the current strain of Panama disease, as it is called, has caused significant losses in banana plantations in Asia over the last two decades. In 2005, the disease was found only in Taiwan and Indonesia. Before long, it was also found in China and Australia, and has recently been reported in Mozambique and Jordan.  Panama disease is caused by a soil-borne fungus. The disease can remain alive in the ground for decades. Once the disease is present in a field, it cannot be fully controlled by currently available practices and fungicides.  The FAO is warning countries to step up monitoring, reporting and prevention of Fusarium wilt. “The TR4 race of the disease is posing a serious threat to production and export of the popular fruit, with serious repercussions for the banana value chain and livelihoods,” the FAO said in an information brief. The banana is the eighth most important food crop in the world and the fourth most important food crop among the world’s least-developed countries, according to the UN agency’s data service. The banana trade makes up a global $8.9 billion industry and banana exports have increased from around 12 million tons in 2001 to 16.5 million in 2012. Bananas also comprise an important component of the business of U.S. ports like New Orleans and Wilmington, Del., both of which recently signed agreements with Chiquita Brands International. Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In places like Rwanda and Uganda, the average banana consumption is about 500 pounds per person per year, 20 times that of the average American. According to the FAO, 400 million people around the world rely on bananas as their primary source of nutrition.  “Any disease that affects bananas is striking at an important source of food, livelihoods, employment and government revenues in many countries,” said Gianluca Gondolini, secretary of the World Banana Forum, an affiliate of the FAO.  “The spread of Fusarium wilt banana disease could have a significant impact on growers, traders and families who depend on the banana industry,” added Fazil Dusunceli, a plant pathologist at the FAO. “Countries need to act now if we are to avoid the worst-case scenario, which is massive destruction of much of the world’s banana crop.” The banana industry involves millions of people directly or indirectly associated with banana production and trade. In Costa Rica alone, over 100,000 jobs rely directly or indirectly on banana production, about eight percent of the country’s total employment.  “Even though until now we have not experienced the TR4 strain on this continent we should do the most to prevent its entrance,” said Romano Orlich, a Costa Rica banana official and the country’s former minister of agriculture. “Bananas are our main agricultural export crop in Costa Rica. It directly provides 40,000 jobs and indirectly 100,000 more in the industry. Just these figures sufficiently demonstrate the impact of TR4 incursion on our economy. It would be a national disaster.” Orlich estimates that a TR4 invasion of Costa Rica would mean the loss of $800 million in exports to the United States and the abandonment of over 100,000 acres of banana plantations at a cost of over $1 billion. “That’s only Costa Rica,” said Orlich. “To understand the full impact, you have to consider the entire region, including Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Dominican Republic and the islands. Misery, unemployment, drugs, and delinquency would be the result.” “Banana cultivation is characterized by a great variety of producers, small holders, industrial plantations, and back-yard plantings,” said Dr. Gert Kema, a researcher at Plant Research International. “Panama disease acts on different scales, plant, field, farm, region, country and even continent. International cooperation and research are indispensable to finding solutions.” The FAO has issued a series of recommended actions in attempt to stop the spread of the disease. These include raising awareness at all levels and promoting the adoption of risk assessment, surveillance, early warning, and phytosanitary systems; preventive measures, including quarantines, the use of disease-free planting materials, prevention of movement of infected soil and planting materials in and out of farms, and the disinfection of vehicles; and the training of producers and farm workers in disease identification, prevention, and management under field conditions. FAO’s information note also stresses the importance of using disease-free seedlings and avoiding movement of infected soil and planting materials into, and out of, farms, through transportation, visitors or other means. The issue will be on the agenda of a series of upcoming FAO meetings in Kenya, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago, with the aim of addressing a range of issues related to TR4, including developing action plans for its prevention, monitoring and containment.  Although the disease can remain in the soil for the long term, the fact that the fungus is soil-borne rather than airborne makes it harder to spread than some other diseases. But that doesn’t help with finding an ultimate cure. The problem, from a scientific standpoint, according to Kema, is that researchers “still don’t know enough about the biology and genetics of the causative fungus.” Furthermore, the disease may already be present in the Western Hemisphere. The fungus has an incubation period of two to three years and, according to reports, farm managers in Mozambique received assistance from Costa Rican and other Central American workers who moved back and forth between their home countries and Africa through 2011. That’s why Kema believes that, it’s not a question of whether the fungus will break out in Central and South America, “It’s a question of when.”