Category: Commodity

Science Friday, a series on the US National Public Radio, last week interviewed Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. Koeppel recently fanned the embers of bananas-are-going-extinct back into a roaring blaze. That particular take on the new races of diseases that threaten the world’s favourite fruit started in a January 2003 article in New Scientist magazine (helpfully summarized by The Guardian) and of course one should always take the sub-editor’s art with a pinch of salt. FAO, not one to miss an opportunity, jumped on the extinction story too, which New Scientist duly covered.

So, extinct, probably not. But if it gets you to care about agricultural biodiversity, I’m all in favour of it.

You can listen to the story from NPR’s site (and read a transcript for good measure). I liked the interview, not because bananas in general are or are not going extinct, but because Koeppel explained so clearly the super-efficient business model that puts bananas on the supermarket shelves at scarily low prices. It is a business model that none of the incumbents is willing to abandon until absolutely necessary, and that makes the cost of entry for a new player, or a new variety, impossibly high.

I also liked Koeppel’s confidence in fingering just one variety — ibota ibota — as his absolute favourite. A quick search session revealed that ibota ibota is quite probably a synonym of Yangambi km5, a banana variety whose name is whispered reverently wherever banana enthusiasts gather. Or maybe it is more complicated than that. Banana stories usually are.