The worst-case scenario has now become a reality for several countries in Latin and South America. Nations like Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala are the world’s largest banana exporters and see a significant portion of their revenues come from these exports.
However, the dreaded arrival of a lethal disease threatens to destroy the entire banana crop in these nations.
The Colombian agriculture and fishing institute (ICA) has just confirmed that the Panama TR4 disease, a soil-living fungus that has single handedly destroyed banana plantations in south-east Asia for the past 30 years, has appeared in Colombia.
Specifically, the fungus threatens to devastate the Cavendish banana, the main type of banana that accounts for half of global production and over 95 percent of the world’s exports.
In response, the ICA has declared this a “national emergency,” warning that the outbreak needs to be contained before it spreads to the whole country and eventually the entire continent. Latin America, in particular, is the source for over two-thirds of the global banana and should the Panama TR4 virus destroys the same proportion of crop that it destroyed in Southeast Asia, bananas could easily double if not triple in price in the years to come.
“The first landing of TR4 in Latin America is a very serious issue. It is a disease that is very difficult to control and to manage,” said Professor Gert Kema, an expert on the fruit.
While the fungus thankfully doesn’t affect humans, what does happen is that plants that become infected no longer produce fruit. This fungus has spread mainly through soil movement, usually caused by workers or machinery that spreads around the spores from area to area, helping propagate the fungus further. While there were worries that the fungus might spread to Latin America eventually, the disease was first suspected of having arrived in Colombia in June.
In response, the country has doubled down on sanitary controls at every port, airport, and border crossing. The ICA has said that it had completely eradicated all plants in an area encompassing 170 hectares of quarantined plantations. The government of Colombia has indicated that it’s willing to take whatever extreme measures necessary to curtail the spread of this disease.
It might almost seem laughable to some that a banana disease could be declared a national emergency, but for many Latin American nations, banana exports constitute a major portion of their economies. What makes bananas even worse as a target, however, is that while many fruits and vegetables are constantly developing new varieties, the banana industry has relied on the Cavendish banana strain exclusively.
With virtually no research or development having been done to finding new potential strains if something happens, the banana industry is especially vulnerable to what could become a cataclysmic nightmare for the sector.
At the moment, there’s no effective treatment for the disease once it has infected a banana plant. Currently, the best bet comes from bio science companies working to use new gene-editing technology to develop a Panama disease-resistant strain of bananas.
The next alternative is being developed by researchers who are trying to speed up the breeding process and identify possible mutations that are resistant to the fungus. However, it’s not certain how these changes will affect the taste and quality of bananas. Even worse, this option could take five to six years before it becomes a reality.
Commodity traders should keep an eye out for this development as there could be a killing to be made in banana futures in the months and years to come.
