Why grocery stores can cope with a banana shortage
The tropical race mushroom threatens to devastate banana cultures around the world.
The supply of global bananas can have problems. According toRecent scientific reports, an equivalent of Covid-19 in the world of banana, caused by a fungus, spreads like a pandemic. The tropical race mushroom, or TR4, can soon obliterateHarvesting in South America, which is about 80% of the world's cavendisite banana exports.
The variety of Cavendish bananas represents nearly 99% of all world banana exports, according to theSmithsonian magazineAnd is the only type of banana with which many people outside tropical culture areas are familiar. Because the Cavendish bananas are a monoculture, which means that they lack genetic diversity seen in most other fruits and vegetables, only one type of fungus can decimate banana cultures in all nations and even between continents. (In touch:McDonald's makes these 8 major upgrades.)
TR4 is just such a fungus; It infects the banana plants on the ground rising, causing leaves to turn yellow, fade, then falls from the plant, finally killing the plant. The mushroom can linger in the soil for years before its destruction begins and propagates rapidly from one plant to another. In recent years, the mushroom has been detected in South Asia, the Middle East, and even more recently in the countries of South and Central America.
Although a shortage is always a facade, its appearance could be disastrous. A global collapse of global banana banana banana would mean a shortage for Western buyers and score a financial disaster for producers, exporters and retailers around the world. According to the data ofThe American Transportation Journal, bananas, the type of fruit or vegetables of global sales, accounted for approximately $ 14.7 billion in revenue for 2019.
For more grocery store, you may have trouble finding shelves this year, discoverGrocery shortages to wait in 2021, according to experts. And do not forget toSubscribe to our newsletterTo get the latest news from the restaurant delivered directly to your inbox.