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The banana is under threat
The banana is under threat
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Phụ đề (269)
0:00
This banana is known as the grow shell
0:02
aka big [music] Mike and it nearly went
0:06
extinct. Hard to imagine because the
0:08
myth that bananas are ubiquitous is so
0:11
ingrained in our minds.
0:12
>> I'm to eat a banana and I've come to say
0:16
bananas. [music]
0:18
>> NOW LET'S GO BANANAS. [cheering]
0:20
>> SO Maricho Catalan's comedian is
0:22
composed of a single banana.
0:24
>> It is the number one grown fruit in the
0:27
world. The most consumed fruit. the most
0:29
important fruit [music] crop. It's the I
0:31
think the weirdness of bananas that
0:33
makes them so interesting.
0:35
>> When Big Mike disappeared from the
0:36
market, it was replaced with something
0:38
very similar, the Caendish banana. And
0:41
you probably recognize it as the banana
0:43
since it's pretty much the only banana
0:45
we see in the US. By the 1950s, Caendish
0:48
became the most commercially successful
0:50
banana.
0:51
>> Bananas are so good for you and so easy
0:53
to digest. But a variant of the same
0:56
disease that virtually wiped out Big
0:58
Mike is coming for the Cavendish. And
1:01
this time, there's no replacement. So,
1:04
what needs to happen to save our beloved
1:06
banana?
1:09
Bananas are fascinating [music] fruits.
1:11
They're part of the genus Musa and are
1:13
full of potassium and an energy [music]
1:15
dense food, making them a staple crop in
1:17
much of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
1:20
>> [music]
1:20
>> They originally came from Asia, likely
1:22
somewhere in Southeast Asia. The wild
1:24
ones are full of seeds. [music]
1:26
>> So, a wild bananas are going to be about
1:28
the length of of your thumb here. And
1:30
these banana seeds are rock hard, tooth
1:32
shattering. [music]
1:33
>> To get to the seedless bananas we have
1:35
today, humans basically had to find
1:37
sterile [music] fruits.
1:38
>> It was probably a mutation that did
1:41
this. Some of these early farmers found
1:43
a banana that was seedless and watched
1:45
it propagate and said, "Hey, you know,
1:47
we can cut this this sucker off, this
1:49
daughter plant, and take it somewhere
1:51
else." The daughter plant gives birth to
1:53
another plant. And this can go on for
1:54
thousands of years.
1:55
>> This method of reproducing through
1:57
propagations is also known as asexual
1:59
cloning.
2:00
>> But it also creates some problems
2:01
because these fruits are essentially now
2:03
clones and they're all exactly the same
2:05
and they carry the same weaknesses. And
2:08
this genetic cloning is really where the
2:10
danger [music] starts. Commercially
2:12
farmed bananas, which are pretty much
2:13
all of the bananas we consume, are
2:15
monocrops. It's an industrial
2:17
agriculture term that refers to single
2:19
crop species grown on the same land
2:21
[music] again and again. It's driven by
2:23
our demand for uniform, durable, and
2:26
cheap [music] fruit.
2:26
>> The variety they picked was a banana
2:28
called the Grom Michelle. The Grom
2:30
Michelle is a great banana for
2:32
commercial use because it's tough. It
2:34
doesn't need to be packaged really that
2:36
much. It ripens at a perfect rate.
2:38
>> The result, uniform bananas for
2:40
consumers like us, [music]
2:41
but extremely fragile biological
2:43
conditions for the plants and the
2:45
farmers. [music]
2:46
>> You run a risk, which is that if one of
2:48
your bananas gets sick, all of them are
2:50
going to get sick.
2:51
>> And that was exactly what happened
2:52
[music] with Panama disease or tropical
2:54
race one in the early 1900s.
2:57
>> The plantations begin to get very sick.
2:59
Fungus invades the soil making it
3:01
impossible to grow the bananas. But
3:03
instead of diversifying, industrial
3:05
banana companies acquired more lands as
3:07
the plantations became diseased.
3:10
>> And all goes well until they finally run
3:12
out of land.
3:12
>> This is partially how the term banana
3:14
republic came to be. It's an ugly
3:16
history that involves US corporations
3:18
like the United Fruit Company exploiting
3:20
land and labor in Central America. These
3:23
companies took over farms and
3:24
governments to grow exports like bananas
3:26
cheaply and at a massive scale. [music]
3:29
But no amount of land and conquest could
3:31
stop the spread of Panama disease. By
3:33
the 1950s, TR1 had devastated the Grom
3:36
Michelle globally, virtually wiping it
3:38
out of production. Luckily, the Grom
3:40
Michelle had a close cousin that was
3:42
resistant to that strain of Panama
3:44
disease, [music] the Cavendish.
3:46
>> At the brink of extinction, at the brink
3:48
of disaster, the banana industry saves
3:51
itself when in fact it is only delayed
3:53
an inevitable fate that will come back
3:55
to haunt it again. Speaking of delicious
3:57
bananas, this video is presented by a
3:59
delicious yogurt, Stony Field Organic.
4:02
For over 40 years, Stonyfield Organic
4:04
has been a champion of truth in our food
4:06
system. There is so much misinformation
4:08
out there, which is why they believe in
4:10
using the highest quality ingredients to
4:12
ensure that what they put on the shelves
4:14
is the best product for you and your
4:16
family. The milk they use comes from all
4:18
over the country, including Molly Brook
4:20
Farms in Vermont. It's USDA organic
4:23
certified, which means no growth
4:25
hormones, no pesticides, no antibiotics.
4:28
So, the next time you're on your grocery
4:29
run and you're thinking about bananas,
4:32
make sure to also check out Stony Field
4:34
Organic Yogurt. It's also important to
4:36
note that Stonyfield Organic did not
4:38
dictate the content of this video, but
4:40
their support did make this tasty
4:42
reporting possible. And now, back to
4:44
bananas. By the 1990s, the Cavendish was
4:47
facing a new strain of the Panama
4:49
[music] disease, tropical race 4 or TR4.
4:52
>> The banana companies refused to believe
4:54
it, and they just keep doing what
4:55
they're doing.
4:56
>> The disease started in Taiwan in the
4:57
late8s. From there, it spread to Africa,
5:00
Australia, and the Americas. [music] By
5:02
late 2025, TR4 is reported in Ecuador,
5:05
the largest banana exporter in the
5:07
world.
5:08
>> This disease is really virilent. If I
5:10
[music] am wearing a sneaker with one
5:12
bit of contaminated soil and I walk
5:14
through a banana plantation, [music] I'm
5:16
going to spread that disease.
5:17
>> But unlike what happened with Grom
5:18
Michelle in the 1950s, there is no
5:21
banana cousin to replace the Cavendish
5:23
with.
5:23
>> So, we're in the situation now where
5:25
this [music] disease is really starting
5:27
to have a dramatic influence and all of
5:31
the major producers around the world are
5:33
now recognizing at long last things have
5:35
to change.
5:36
>> Now, it's not like other bananas don't
5:38
exist. There are actually over a
5:40
thousand species of bananas with
5:42
specialty farms and supermarkets. You
5:44
can even find some of these other
5:46
varieties. [music]
5:47
>> There's certainly being been a move to
5:49
try to move consumer preferences from
5:52
Cavendish to something else. [music]
5:54
Consumers didn't like it. Didn't taste
5:56
like Cavendish. That preference is such
5:59
an incredible driver. And to try to get
6:02
consumers to change from a Cavendish
6:04
banana to something [music] else is
6:07
going to be a big ask. So, Professor
6:09
Dale turned to science.
6:11
>> My group started to genetically modify
6:14
bananas. So, we know there is resistance
6:16
to Panama disease tropical raceful. It
6:19
actually occurs in one of those wild
6:22
bananas we were talking about, the ones
6:24
with [music] seeds. We pulled one gene
6:26
out of that banana and transferred it to
6:30
Cavendish. But as you can imagine,
6:33
consumers have a lot of skepticism
6:35
around genetically modified foods. At
6:38
this time, in March 2026, Professor
6:40
Dale's lab grown Cavendish bananas are
6:43
not yet available in stores.
6:44
>> We've now had approval to grow
6:46
commercially grow that banana in
6:47
Australia, but nowhere else in the world
6:49
as yet. Genetically modified crops are
6:52
highly regulated. So Europe at the
6:54
moment is very reticent on taking any
6:57
genetically modified foods. And the
7:00
other thing, of course, is consumer
7:02
perception.
7:03
>> While his modified banana will likely
7:05
never make it into the European market,
7:07
Professor Dale has other solutions like
7:09
gene editing.
7:10
>> In many countries, this is no longer
7:13
considered genetic modification. There
7:15
are many, many other crops that are
7:17
being gene edited and some of them are
7:20
already on the market. So, to save our
7:22
beloved banana, either Western consumers
7:24
will have to give up on the myth of
7:25
there being only one type of banana, or
7:28
regulators are going to have to accept
7:30
genetically engineered Cavendish.
7:32
>> I think we're going to have to have an
7:33
open mind about how we're going to
7:35
produce our crops under what are
7:38
becoming increasingly extreme
7:40
conditions.
7:41
>> Though truthfully, science can only do
7:43
so much. [music] The answers for
7:45
preserving our beloved banana and the
7:47
future of many of our fruits lies in
7:49
maintaining a diverse ecosystem. [music]
7:51
>> How do we fix the problem? And the
7:53
answer is destroy the monoculture. We
7:56
need to get all those bananas that are
7:58
so good to the United States to Europe
8:01
to the Western world because that's the
8:03
only way to sort of protect the banana
8:04
and to protect people who grow bananas.
8:06
[music]
8:07
What I would love to see would be when
8:09
you walk into a supermarket that still
8:12
the bananas are right there front and
8:14
center, but there [music] are 10
8:15
different ones. It's Cavendish over here
8:18
and maybe Lady Finger. And bananas would
8:20
go from the world's favorite fruit to
8:23
even more favorite.
8:24
>> All right, so we got all of these
8:26
bananas for this shoot and we want to do
8:28
a blind taste test to see if we can
8:30
actually identify which one is
8:31
Cavendish. Um, and also see if we like
8:33
one of these bananas better. Shout out
8:35
to the Thai Filipino Markets for
8:36
actually having such a diverse array of
8:38
bananas. And we're going to put the
8:40
results of the blind taste test up on
8:42
Vox's Patreon. If you're not yet a
8:44
member, go on over to patreon.com/vox.
8:47
It's so important to support independent
8:49
journalism. You know, your membership
8:51
allows us to continue making videos like
8:53
this, allow us to have fun, be creative,
8:55
but also really dig into the
8:57
investigative reporting. And if it
8:58
doesn't make sense for you financially
9:00
today to support Fox, you can still sign
9:02
up for free. Stay up to date with our
9:04
reporting. And now, let's get this taste
9:07
test started. Ben, ready eventually?
9:11
[laughter]
