Apr 22, 2016 By Priya Ranganathan 4 min read

If you have ever stopped at the banana section of Trader Joe’s, it may be time to start stocking up on your favorite fruit. Scientists in developing countries are trying desperately to halt the progress of deadly banana fungus Tropical Race 4 – with nothing positive to report.

Tropical Race 4 (TR4) is a new strain of soil fungus that is known as Panama Fulsarium Wilt disease that escaped from Asia in 2013. It spread across the Middle East by 2015, threatening to spread into Sub-Saharan Africa as well. The disease spreads via soil on shoes and equipment, water droplets and methods of soil mobilization from one region to another. Soil particles blowing in the wind are effective vectors of the fungus. The target species is the Cavendish banana, the primary banana type grown for the international market and the banana that we buy at grocery stores daily (Chiquita brand label).

The rise of the banana fungus can be blamed on the banana monoculture that has taken over the banana industry. History points towards similar incidents in the past – in the 1950s, the most popular banana, the Gros Michel, was wiped out due to an earlier form of this fungus. The Cavendish proved to be more resistant, and the monoculture took off. But resistance is only temporary in the arms race of pathogens against crops. The fungus has returned.

The banana industry has no viable or effective treatment for TR4 in the field. Spores of the fungus remain viable within the soil matrix for decades, thwarting scientists’ attempts to hold off on growing bananas in affected soil for a crop rotation. Currently, there is no alternative to the Cavendish banana that is resistant to the TR4. Can science find a solution in time?

Instead of spraying pesticides in an attempt to keep a monoculture alive, banana growers would do well to diversify their crops. Each individual banana bunch is wrapped in bags lined with insecticides. Every 18.6 kg box of bananas contains a liter of active ingredients that seep into the fruit and have the potential to wreak havoc on our bodies. And yet, we continue to support banana farms in the name of nutrition and taste. Has anyone asked what percent of bananas are poison?

As a banana lover, I can’t imagine sitting down to breakfast without a banana. Choosing to eat a banana is a luxury that families in developed nations can afford; in many tropical nations, however, bananas form a nutritional necessity in the diet of many. Is our demand for bananas in North America encouraging large banana export crops and preventing people in Asia and Africa from getting adequate nutrition? This is a side to the banana monopoly that is far removed from our breakfast tables.

As consumers, we have a responsibility to try and break up the banana monoculture. How? By raising awareness about the banana fungus and its emergence from monoculture monopolies. Instead of encouraging banana multinationals, grocery stores need to support small banana farms that use organic and natural growing methods. We can also work to raise awareness about soil health here in our gardens. Garden soils benefit from rotating the plants grown in them just as agricultural fields undergo crop rotation to ensure nutrient cycling.

How do you keep an unnatural monoculture crop alive for so many years? By spraying insecticides and keeping consumer interests peaked by the prospect of a tasty yellow treat. But maybe the banana’s reign on the fruit market is nearing its end. A natural death it may not be, but the lessons we can learn may save future favorite foods from meeting the same end.

In the end, it’s a lesson in humility. Even the smallest fungus has the potential to undermine one of the largest monocultures in food production today.

Priya Ranganathan is a Mt. Lebanon native and a graduate student of environmental management at Duke University.