Edmonton researcher ready to tackle banana crop slippage

Crop diversity can save one of the world's favourite foods from being wiped out, says a University of Alberta researcher on his way to Africa to investigate the threat to the most common type of banana. 

"This is a significant issue," said Stan Blade, dean of agriculture, life, and environmental sciences. "Canadians eat about five kilograms, 12 pounds, of bananas [each] every year. This is a major export crop across the world — $11 billion."

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Blade said in some countries, the food makes up to 50 to 60 per cent of calories people consume. The yellow fruit is even used in brewing beer.

The threat, though serious, isn't unique, he said. 

"Agricultural scientists fight diseases, pests, insects, all the time in almost every crop," he pointed out. "But it is an issue that people have to deal with," he said in an interview on Edmonton AM this week.

In the 1950s a pathogen called Panama disease wiped out the world's commercial banana crops.

"Gros Michel, the previous variety — beautiful, a very tasty variety as a matter of fact — wiped out by Panama disease; now here we are, 40 or 50 years later, the industry replaced by one other type of banana."

A new strain of the fungus is spreading through banana crops in East Africa and Asia, threatening the current cultivar called the Cavendish.

Relying on one strain puts the system in jeopardy, Blade said, so he hopes science and research will prompt industry to grow other varieties.

"In 40 or 50 years ... in our local grocery store here in Edmonton, there might be red bananas and purple bananas and maybe the size of your finger."

Blade, who grew up on a farm in Alberta, is heading to Cameroon later this month to help develop a genetic resistance in bananas to the disease.