Bleak future for bananas

BANANA export in the South Pacific faces a bleak future because of disease and interna tional competition.

The region’s three banana-exporting

countries Tonga, Western Samoa and the Cook Islands now have to tackle an incurable fungal disease and the

might of banana-producing giants.

“The prospects are not very good at all . . . the Pacific hasn’t got a show,” said Dr Robert Fullerton, a plant protection scientist at Auckland’s De partment of Scientific and Industrial Research. Speaking at a Pacific plant pathology seminar in Suva last month, he said costs of controlling the Black Sigatoka disease would be high and uneconomical for Pacific small farmers.

Black Sigatoka or Black Leaf Streak, which was identified in 1964 in Fiji, can be controlled by successful but expensive chemical fungicides. The practical sol ution is to develop resistant varieties but, as he points out, it could be years before a suitable one is found.

While the production level continues to drop in the three Pacific countries, Ecuador and Central American banana

giants have muscled in on New Zealand the main Pacific market.

They are edging the Pacific countries out with glossy advertising and high fruit quality. As the two giants compete with each other in the New Zealand market, their price war is undercutting Tonga, the Cooks and Western Samoa.

In the 1960 s Tonga, the Cooks, Western Samoa and Fiji were major banana exporters. In the late 1960 s Fiji stopped exporting due to administrative difficulties within the industry.

The other three countries continued but, into the 19705, yield and quality deteriorated due mainly to Black Siga toka. Many farmers have given up on bananas and switched to other crops.

The disease kills the leaves on banana trees, weakening the plant and prevent ing normal production of fruit. It can cause premature ripening which pro duces some green and some ripe fruit unsuitable for exporting.

“Since the disease hit us in the 70s our production has been cut to 30 per cent,” said Dr Semisi Semisi, associate Director of Western Samoa’s department of Agri culture, Forests and Fisheries.

“It is our banana industry’s number one threat... to control it is very expensive, fungicide is around 700 tala a gallon. Our only hope is to work on resistance in the long term,” he said.

Parei Joseph from the Cook Islands and Semisi Pule Pone from Tonga told of a similar situation in their countries.

Dr Fullerton and a team of New Zealand scientists are researching Black Sigatoka a threaten not only the Pacific but a large percentage of the world’s banana crop. The only banana growing countries free of the disease are Australia, the Caribbean and parts of Latin America.

Around 400 million people world-wide rely on bananas for subsistence and scientists are working on disease control short-term. However, Dr Fullerton said the only solution was to find varieties which were resistant.

He admits there will be years of research to get some indication of resistance. For now the main weapon against this fast-spreading disease is strategic use of fungicide and disease

monitoring.

As Tonga’s Pone said : “We are looking at reviving the banana industry, with the high costs idisease?” □