A vaccine for the banana please
How do I say this ? Well the thing is that the banana is er,dying.
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The world is busy fighting Covid19 or busy ignoring it.Well that’s a good thing.We survived the Spanish Flu of 1918, we should jolly well survive 2020 too, else all the advances in Science and Technology would have been in vain, and apocalypse is upon us. Well, maybe not, because the good old Oracle, Nostradamus, did not predict any such thing. Rejoice!
Now I have sort of begun to turn a blind eye to this pandemic and I’m sure I’m in a very small minority because I can see everybody talking about it with the same gravity as they did few months back. Nobody wants to get back to their lives or have fun at the expense of you know what.I look out of my balcony and I see people farming on theirs, some are even cultivating wheat and tobacco to become absolutely self-sufficient.
So the human race is sorted.I’m more concerned about the humble banana who does not have a voice of it’s own.I’m going to be a comrade, and speak up, stand for this non-exotic, effete fruit that has filled many a bellies in between or in the absence of proper meals.
How do I say this ? Well , the thing is, that the banana is er, dying. There, I said it.And ironically, this is being caused by a pandemic - Panama disease or TR4 which caused havoc to plantations in 1950.So the thing is, it’s been dying for long - the Cavendish banana that is, but it actually hasn’t, the cheeky old bugger.
Now, in India, we get a terrible, third world version (yes I will use this label for the countries that are) of the Cavendish despite the fact that our country is the largest producer of bananas in the world and about 70% of this produce is Cavendish.
The people in the west, south and east (Assam mainly I think) India grow and relish amazing varieties of the fruit but up north we get just one type at large - you guessed it, Cavendish.Funny thing is, they look like the most beautiful bananas when you buy them in the markets but the next day they turn into sickly old decaying mutants as if the air in my house is radioactive.Nearly 300 varieties of the fruit and what we get is the mutant that ripens to death in captivity.
Owing to the Cavendish’s resilience, it makes a perfect candidate for large scale production and long distance transportation.It is a victim of its own success.
Now, some reports in 2003 went as far as foretelling that the banana as we know it will be wiped off the face of the planet, in 10 years. Well, that’s thankfully turned out to be a hoax, not that there was a global alarm set-off. But the question truly is, how bad is it ?
While this Fungus has been around in several countries including parts of Africa and South-east Asia and even Australia. The observations in India had been debatable up until 2017, when the occurrence was empirically confirmed.
Now, I know that a large part of the scientific community is busy figuring out a vaccine to defend against Covid19, but I’m sure that the folks who spent considerable time of their youth studying shrubs and bushes would flounce about and do something for the poor old banana and go discover some ways to save the Cavendish and others that it will take down and along.
Or maybe the people selling and buying (not the end consumers) bananas should now put a stop to long distance travels, globe-trotting for the fruit. Enough. Stay local, get eaten and excreted locally.
What ever it is that needs to be done except genetically modifying the bugger, must be done. For the banana as we know it, is at peril.