b'jUnE 22 - jUly 26, 2020NOrth AmericAs trANsPOrtAtiON & LOGistics N ewsPAPer 15Banana business facing crisis of pandemic proportions No fruit dies so vile and offensive a death as theTEMPER ATURE-CONTROLLED banana. Kiran Desai, Indian author InastrangecoincidencewiththeCovid-19pan- LOGISTICS demic, the banana is facing its own pandemicthe disease, Tropical Race 4 (TR4), which like COVID-19TRI-ANNUALhas no known cure and is racing across the globe laying waste to banana plantations and threatening the bananas very survival.By George Lauriat, AJOTTheIndianwriterKiranin 2019 - and rising. DesaiwrotethememorableForexample,India,the lineinherbookInheri- worldslargestbananapro-tanceLossdescribingtheducer(aswellasmangoes), deathofabanana.Forgrowsaround29million Indian-bornauthorDesai,atonsannually,whileChina countrythatproducesmorethenumbertwoproducer bananas-around30millionaccounts for around 11.7 mil-tonnesannually-andcon- lion tons of produce annually. sumes annually about 53 lbs.But as is the case with many per person, again more thansmallerproducingnations, anywhere else - the quote car- (CRISIScontinued on ries some import for a globalpage 16)businessfacingacrisisof pandemic proportions.There is no business quite liketheubiquitousbanana. Accordingtoarecentreport by the FAO (Food and Agri-culturalOrganizationofthe UnitedNations)approxi-mately 20.2 million tonnes of the yellow fruit were exported internationally in 2019, making it the worlds largest fruit or vegetable traded.The banana, which notched anestimated$14.7billion globallyin2019,hasbeen the top banana of the global perishabletradesforovera centuryandhasfacedfew challengers(although avo-cado sales have grown rapidly and is now globally a $6.5 bil-lion business) but the spread ofTR4,climatechangeand othersocio-economicfac-tors dim an otherwise bright future for banana exporters.g LoBaLa ppeaL andr ise oFtheC avendishAccordingtotheFAO [BananaMarketReview February 2020] the estimates fortheglobalproductionof bananasforthe2017-2019 period was about 116 million tonnes worth $31 billiona substantial increase over the 2000-2002estimateof69 milliontons.Theprincipal impetus for this rapid growth in banana production is two-fold,risingpopulationsin banana producing nations and risingdemandinconsum-ing nations. Naturally, given these two trends, the greatest increases in production have come in nations that are both top producers and consumers of bananas. Althoughneverthought ofasbigbananaproducers bothIndiaandChina(and to a lesser extent Brazil) are top producers of bananas but consumealargeportionof theirproductionandinthe instanceofChinaareeven compelled to import bananas to the tune of over $1 billion'