A threat to bananas

A threat to bananas

Read a text about a fungus threatening bananas to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Reading text

In the 1950s, Central American commercial banana growers were facing the death of their most lucrative product, the Gros Michel banana, known as Big Mike. And now it’s happening again to Big Mike’s successor – the Cavendish.

With its easily transported, thick-skinned and sweet-tasting fruit, the Gros Michel banana plant dominated the plantations of Central America. United Fruit, the main grower and exporter in South America at the time, mass-produced its bananas in the most efficient way possible: it cloned shoots from the stems of plants instead of growing plants from seeds, and cultivated them in densely packed fields.

Unfortunately, these conditions are also perfect for the spread of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, which attacks the plant’s roots and prevents it from transporting water to the stem and leaves. The TR-1 strain of the fungus was resistant to crop sprays and travelled around on boots or the tyres of trucks, slowly infecting plantations across the region. In an attempt to escape the fungus, farmers abandoned infected fields, flooded them and then replanted crops somewhere else, often cutting down rainforest to do so.

Their efforts failed. So, instead, they searched for a variety of banana that the fungus didn’t affect. They found the Cavendish, as it was called, in the greenhouse of a British duke. It wasn’t as well suited to shipping as the Gros Michel, but its bananas tasted good enough to keep consumers happy. Most importantly, TR-1 didn’t seem to affect it. In a few years, United Fruit had saved itself from bankruptcy by filling its plantations with thousands of the new plants, copying the same monoculture growing conditions Gros Michel had thrived in.

While the operation was a huge success for the Latin American industry, the Cavendish banana itself is far from safe. In 2014, South East Asia, another major banana producer, exported four million tons of Cavendish bananas. But, in 2015, its exports had dropped by 46 per cent thanks to a combination of another strain of the fungus, TR-4, and bad weather.

Growing practices in South East Asia haven’t helped matters. Growers can’t always afford the expensive lab-based methods to clone plants from shoots without spreading the disease. Also, they often aren’t strict enough about cleaning farm equipment and quarantining infected fields. As a result, the fungus has spread to Australia, the Middle East and Mozambique – and Latin America, heavily dependent on its monoculture Cavendish crops, could easily be next.

Racing against the inevitable, scientists are working on solving the problem by genetically modifying the Cavendish with genes from TR-4-resistant banana species. Researchers at the Queensland University of Technology have successfully grown two kinds of modified plant which have remained resistant for three years so far. But some experts think this is just a sophisticated version of the same temporary solution the original Cavendish provided. If the new bananas are planted in the same monocultures as the Cavendish and the Gros Michel before it, the risk is that another strain of the disease may rise up to threaten the modified plants too.

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Profile picture for user amit_ck

Submitted by amit_ck on Wed, 26/02/2020 - 19:56

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Could you please make these capitalized sentences simple? State promises to provide more up-to-date engines, planes, and helicopters to fight fires have been fulfilled. FIREFIGHTERS’ UNIONS THAT IN THE PAST COMPLAINED OF DILAPIDATED EQUIPMENT, OLD FIRE ENGINES, AND INSUFFICIENT BLUEPRINTS FOR FIRE SAFETY ARE NOW PRAISING THE STATE'S COMMITMENT, NOTING THAT FUNDING FOR FIREFIGHTING HAS INCREASED, DESPITE HUGE CUTS IN MANY OTHER PROGRAMS. ‘WE ARE PLEASED THAT THE CURRENT STATE ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN VERY PROACTIVE IN ITS SUPPORT OF US, AND [HAS] COME THROUGH WITH BUDGETARY SUPPORT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS WE HAVE LONG SOUGHT,' says Mr. McHale of the firefighters’ union.

Hello amit_ck

The firefighters are happy with the government now because many improvements have been made: they have newer equipment, better building plans and in general more money.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by bval on Mon, 20/01/2020 - 11:57

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I think this is a short term solution. Over time the crops will be attacked by another strain of fungus and scientists will have to genetically modify other types of banana plants. This mass produced system could be the problem but could be prevented by reducing and controlling more efficiently the crops of banana plants.

Submitted by Tajbibi Shamim on Sat, 14/12/2019 - 18:17

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as long as it is not a health hazard, it is ok to modify the crop. The population is expanding , so to reach the market n time, the farmers have to look for alternatives.

Submitted by eriksound on Fri, 06/12/2019 - 14:41

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I think that the solution to genetically modify the Cavendish banana is a good enough solution if the bananas are not planted in the monoculture. In addition, the solution may be a good solution if the cost that needed is inexpensive.

Submitted by JOANNAYEON on Mon, 11/11/2019 - 04:33

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Actually i don't know whether genetically modify will work for Cavendish banana plantation, because it related to biology and science, and it need to conducted deeply by scientists and biologist. But the most important is that this kind of solution need to be eco-friendly and sustainable.

Submitted by Wahiba on Wed, 09/10/2019 - 06:56

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The solution genetically modify the Cavendish bananas is certainly beneficial to the explorers. It allows them to ovoid bankruptcy . It’s still get the sweet fruit to the costumers but it would be really dangerous because we don’t know yet the consequences to human and animal health and also to the environment. I hope it wouldn’t cause disasters.

Submitted by AliMir on Sun, 28/07/2019 - 13:29

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I don't know how could be overcoming the problem, because it's a subject beyond my knowledge so it's better leave it for the scientists. However I am afraid genetically modifying method would become a second matter as still there are many activists looking at it suspiciously.