Disease threatens world’s bananas: UN

UNITED NATIONS. — The United Nations warned yesterday of the potential “massive destruction” of the world’s US$5-billion a year banana crop as a plant disease spreads from Asia to Africa and the Middle East.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the TR4 strain of Panama disease, which has already hit tens of thousands of hectares in Southeast Asia, had been reported in Jordan and Mozambique. The disease is “posing a serious threat to production and export” of bananas, the fourth most important food crop for the world’s least developed countries and a key revenue source for poor farmers, FAO said in a report. There is no cure for TR4, which particularly affects the Cavendish variety that accounts for 47 percent of world banana production. — AFP.