Design
Start Getting Used to the Idea of Eating Really Different Kinds of Bananas
The fungus that rots the most common banana found in U.S. supermarkets is spreading closer to major plantations.
Walk into any North American supermarket, and the bananas you'll find in the produce section are almost certainly of the Cavendish variety, pictured above. Scientists have long feared that Tropical Race (TR) 4, a soil fungus that rots the Cavendish banana, will reach Latin America. That's where the vast majority of the multi-billion dollar banana export trade is based, and the source of nearly all the bananas consumed in the United States. And now, there’s more reason to worry.
TR-4 emerged in the 1990s and had been limited to Asian countries like China, Philippines, and Malaysia, as well as Australia. But in the past several months, the fungus has spread to Jordan and Mozambique.