Banana not in danger just yet

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Banana not in danger just yet

David Jones

Source: Nature

27 February 2003 | EN

Cavendish bananas

Several recent media items — including a Nature feature article entitled 'A dying breed' — have reported that the banana faces extinction.

In a letter to this week's Nature, David Jones, editor of the journal Diseases of Banana, Abacá and Enset, complains that such scare stories predicting the imminent end of the banana have been blown up out of all proportion.

He explains that contrary to what has been written, the Panama pathogen with the ability to kill Cavendish bananas is found only in parts of a few tropical countries, and that neither the export banana — nor any other banana — is in danger of disappearing just yet.

Link to letter to Nature

Reference: Nature 421, 889 (2003)

Photo credit: Dr Mark Rieger, University of Georgia

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