A new study claims that bananas are close to extinction.
The reason that bananas are coming closer to extinction is Tropical Race 4. Tropical Race 4 is a clone of the Panama disease fungus that can’t be stopped once it starts infecting bananas. It’s recently started killing off Cavendish bananas, today’s most common banana sold in stores, reports Fox News.
Tropical Race 4 has already spread to multiple countries and efforts to contain it have failed. It’s the same disease that killed off the Gros Michel banana, which used to be the common version of bananas found in grocery stores. The disease takes year to spread, but it can’t be killed, Fox News notes.
“India had about 600 varieties, but over the past two decades the Cavendish has pushed out and replaced many of those,” Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The fate of the fruit that changed the world, told
CNN. “And when you replace a varied multiculture with a monoculture, if a disease happens, you’re in trouble: nature comes back and bites you.”
More From InvestorPlace:
