Bananas could go extinct. Wait... what?

In today’s episode on 18th March 2026, we tell you how bananas, the world’s most popular fruit, could disappear from fruit markets. Book a FREE call with Ditto https://ditto.sh/vx51ji

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  Hello folks, you're tuned in if and shots daily. In today's episode, we tell you half bananas, the world's most popular fruit could disappear from fruit markets.

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  Before we begin, here's a quick word from team Dito. Life can be unpredictable and if the main earner is not around, the bills won't stop. That's why term insurance is so important. It gives your family a fixed payout so they can cover school fees, EMIs and daily expenses without stress. If you buy it early, you can get a one crore cover for as little as thousand rupees a month and the premium stays the same for your entire policy term. That's real peace of mind at a very small cost. And if you're not sure which plan is right for you, book a free call with Dito. No spam, just honest guidance and we're trusted by over eight lakh people for their health and term insurance needs. Now, back to the story. You and I consume roughly seventy eighty bananas a year.

• 0:56Speaker 00

  When we say you and I, we mean the average Indian. This makes bananas the most commonly produced and consumed fruit in India and in fact the world. India is the world's largest banana producer, producing about thirty-five million tonnes of the fruit every year. But nearly ninety percent of it is consumed within the country itself. That's largely because India has smaller land holdings compared to countries like Ecuador and the Philippines, which dominate the global export market. And smaller land holdings bring their own challenges. It's harder to use advanced technology to spray pesticides across plantations. Post-harvest logistics aren't always efficient, so fruits can spoil before they're export-ready and maintaining uniform quality, something global markets demand is difficult.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  All of this means that despite producing nearly a quarter of the world's bananas, India's share in global exports is just about one percent. But soon, even this market may be disrupted because the banana, as we know it, could actually go extinct. Yep, you heard that right. Okay, that may be a bit of exaggeration, but hear us out. There are more than thousand banana varieties in the world with India alone having over three hundred native varieties. But there's just one we know to be commercial favorite. It's called the Cavendish, the G9 variety or... Also the supermarket banana. In India, you commonly know it by the names Grand Nani, Robusta, Bhuvneshwar, Basaray and Shimant. These bananas trace their origins to Southeast Asia, possibly China, and were eventually shipped

• 2:23Speaker 00

  to different parts of the world by the 18th century. When they reached Mauritius, British horticulturists and physician Charles Telfair got hold of them, planted some in his garden and also sent a sample back to England where it was grown as an exotic fruit by wealthy plant collectors. The banana eventually reached the garden of the sixth Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, whose gardener Joseph Paxton named the variety after his employer. Now, Cavendish bananas were known to be of uniform size and to have a long shelf life, but they weren't always the preferred variety for global trade, simply because there was an even more commercially favoured banana back then, the Gross Michael, also known as Big Mike. The Cavendish was considered too delicate compared to the Gross Mikel because bananas had to be loaded onto ships in bunches for global trade.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  And since the Cavendish bruised easily and had to be boxed, they couldn't be shipped as conveniently as the Gross Mikel. Some also felt that Cavendish wasn't as sweet, so for the next century or so, the Gross Mikel was the dominant export variety. But then, a fungal disease called Panama disease, which started in Central America, quickly spread to most of the world's commercial banana plantations and devastated the Gross Mikel. This disease is caused by a soil-borne fungus called Fusarium. Once it infects the soil, it affects the plant's vascular system, prevents it from absorbing water and eventually leads to yellowing, wilting and death of the plant. It can spread through contaminated soil, water and equipment. And since there is no effective cure, infected plantations often have to be abandoned or shifted to other crops.

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  So eventually, as the disease spread across the world, it effectively wiped out Gross Mikel as a viable export variety by 1965. And producers then switched to the Cavendish, which while not perfect, was uniform, suitable for exports and at the time, resistant to Panama disease. But now, nearly 60 years later, the Cavendish 2 seems to be affected by another strain of this very disease that killed the Gross Mikel. This strain, called the Tropical Race 4 or TR4, has begun to impact banana plantation Across the world, including India, particularly affecting the Cavendish variety. And if left unchecked, it could lead to significant yield losses and threaten the world's most widely consumed commercial banana. Now you might wonder, okay, we do have so many other banana varieties, so what's the big deal?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  The thing is, there's no other variety that comes close to the Cavendish in terms of uniformity or the fact that it doesn't ripen and bruise as easily as many other existing banana varieties. That's exactly why it's preferred for global shipments where transportation times are long. Besides, Cavendish bananas and most other commercial banana varieties are essentially clones of seedless banana plant, which makes them all susceptible to this disease. Meaning, long ago, bananas available in market weren't seedless. Yep, they had hard seeds which were unpleasant to eat and difficult to bite into. So, when farmers found a naturally seedless variety, they began propagating it by cutting a part of the plant, like a sucker, and planting it elsewhere so it would grow into a new plant.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  And that's how we got the seedless bananas we commercially consume today. So since all of these are clones and the Cavendish banana variety has created a kind of monoculture that the world depends on, a disease that affects one plant can affect all of them and potentially wipe out the entire variety, just like what happened with the Gross Mikel. So, how do we save the world's most commonly consumed fruit from this disease, you ask? Well, scientists at the I C A R, that's Indian Council of Agricultural Research, have been working on a solution in form of a biopesticide that can help manage the disease. This biopesticide has been developed using a beneficial strain of fungi called Trichoderma. A few years ago, I C A R scientists had already developed a formulation that was effective against Fusarium wilt in crops like tomatoes and chilies.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Building on that, they modified it to tackle Panama disease in bananas. It's called I C A R Fusicond. And, this formulation helps control the Fusarium fungus from multiplying and affecting the roots while also improving the plant's resistance if applied at regular intervals during the banana crop cycle, which lasts about fourteen to sixteen months. But, that does not mean this Indian formulation can save the world's Cavendish bananas. That's because I C A R's formulation has been tested in specific Indian conditions. On particular, G nine Cultivars and soil climate settings. And that doesn't translate automatically to effectiveness or economic viability in other banana producing regions such as Latin America, Africa or Southeast Asia. Besides, each country has its own regulatory approvals,

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  which can slow or even prevent the rapid adoption of any new biopesticide. So, there are only two other ways to tackle this problem. One option is a genetically modified banana. Basically, you take a gene from a wild banana variety that is resistant to TR4 and transfer it to the Cavendish variety. But the problem here is that genetically modified crops are highly regulated across the world. They have to go through strict food safety checks as they could potentially introduce allergens or other issues. So, even consumers could be wary of them. And the second solution, which might sound simple, is to shift to another export banana variety. But that's not as easy as it sounds. Consumers have grown used to the Cavendish and aren't easily willing to accept a different kind of banana. So, changing that preference isn't likely to happen anytime soon, which could mean one thing.

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  The most widely grown and consumed commercial banana might slowly disappear from global trade and you may only have a few left in your backyard. So, yes, the Cavendish banana, at least as a dominant global variety, could fade away over the next few decades. And we may soon have to sing the 1923 hit song by Frank Silver and Erwin Kohn. Yes, we have no bananas, unless the world comes up with a way to save it. All right, folks, I'll see you in the next one. Thank you for listening to today's episode. And if you want to share your feedback or suggestions, do drop us an email to [email protected]. Until next time.