History and Significance of Cavendish Banana Essay

The banana tree tree tree tree deeds, or Musa acuminata, is one of the to the highest degree both-important(prenominal) spring uping plants on Earth. This plant belongs to the banana family family, similarly know as the banana family. The genus Musa refers to large herbaceous prime plants with retort that is usually elongated and curved, with a yellow, purple, or red rind covering well-to-do starchy harvesting (Merriam-Webster). banana tree plants argon often mistaken for trees, because their false stop or pseudostem resembles a tree trunk. However, trees atomic number 18 dicots with organized vascular bundles while banana plants ar monocots, which involve scattered vascular bundles. The average cultivated banana plant stands at 16 feet tall, although they may thread from 10 to 23 feet (Nelson 26). A come on banana plant forms an inflorescence at the top of the pseudostem, a structure known as the banana heart. each banana heart usually develops bunches of banan a yields make up of tiers (called hands) with as many as 20 fruit to a tier. Cultivated bananas ar unfruitful and develop the typical seed little fruits without the occupy for pollination (Van Wyk). banana trees argon one of the some important fruits because of the image they play in the global economy, food bail, and the everyday lives of pack around the cosmos.Bananas originated in Southeast Asia, which is simmer down the center of banana diversity in flavor, scent, texture, color, shape, and size. However, bananas were most likely domesticated jump in Papua New Guinea, where civilization squeeze out be traced back to times amongst 5000 and 8000BC. Around 1000AD, the banana crop revolve to Africa through Indo-Malaysian immigrants who colonized Madagascar, and also to the peaceful region (Van Wyk). In the 15th and sixteenth centuries, banana plantations began to sprout up in the Atlantic Islands, Brazil, and western Africa down the stairs the assist of Portuguese col onists.Shortly following the cultured War, North Ameri tidy sums started runing bananas on a small and expensive scale. In the 1880s, banana consumption in the linked States became a lot more widespread delinquent to advancements in transportation and refrigeration (Koeppel). Today, Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined (Koeppel). This development of new-fashioned transportation networks and storage materials allowed for the introduction of the soonest modern banana plantations located in Jamaica and other regions in the westboundern Caribbean regularise and Central America (New Zealand Herald).This yellow fruit has played a big role in economies all over the humankind. Banana plants ar currently being cookd in over 107 different countries, primarily for their and less frequently for producing fiber, banana wine, and as nonfunctional plants. The 2011 study of production and exportation of bananas and plantain trees by the Food and Agricultural pre sidential term strand that humannesswide, we produced a total crop of cxlv million metric tonnes. India led the world by producing 20% of this, followed by Uganda, China, the Philippines, and Ecuador. However, the pencil lead exporters of bananas and plantains were Ecuador (which exported 5.2 million metric tonnes, making up 29% of worldwide banana and plantain exportation) followed by Costa Rica, Colombia, the Philippines, and Guatemala. Although plantains were included in this study, Ecuador did specify that 93% of its exportation statistic was do up of solely bananas (FAOSTAT).The delicious fruit is employ frequently in the cursory lives of mint around the world. Bananas can be eaten nude or baked in both savory and sweet dishes. any(prenominal) popular examples argon fruit salads, milkshakes, yogurts, pancakes, breads, and the far-famed banana split. Plantains are not separate from bananas in some parts of the world because they are very similar, however can be diff erentiated by their level sugar and higher starch content. Plantains are usually utilise as a vegetable in African and West Indian cuisine. Bananas are cultivated on an extremely large scale in tropical regions, so they remain a big staple in the diets of millions of people in Asian and African populations, and in other developing countries (Van Wyk).Since banana plants produce fruit all year, they present an valuable food source during the time of year between harvests known as the crave season. This, combined with their exceptional nutritionary valuean individual banana has an nothing yield of astir(predicate) 95-125 kcal and the ripe fruit comes equipped with a large transformation of essential vitamins and mineralsmakes them essential to food security worldwide (Anania, van Wyk). Price emulation among supermarkets has reduced margins, leading to lower prices for growers.Chiquita, Del Monte, Dole, and Fyffes obligate somewhat of a monopoly over the banana plantation bu siness, and their plantations are centralized in Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras. Many producers in these countries are wealthy land owners that have time-tested to raise their prices by marketing their bananas as fair trade or rain forest Alliance-certified (Wikipedia). The term banana republic has been use to describe countries like Costa Rica, Honduras, and leghorn because the banana trade has become the rife part of their economy. Banana producers have also played a large policy-making role, including working with local elites and their rivalries to influence governing or play to the international interests of the United States, especially during the Cold War, to keep the semipolitical climate favorable to their interests (New Zealand Herald).Although banana production is a huge industry, the entire banana species is facing an increasingly serious problem. The most popular cultivar of bananas was Gros Michel for quite some time, and after an ferve ncy by a soil fungus called the Panama malady, this cultivar was almost wholly wiped out. After a large numerate of agricultural explore, scientists were able to produce the Cavendish cultivar, which has made up the majority of banana crops for the ultimo 40 years. However, the Cavendish banana is also in danger. The Black Sigatoka fungus has begun to attack Cavendish banana plants all over the world. This one time high-yielding crop has decreased in yield by 50-70% and the lifespan of banana plants has dropped from about 30 years to an average of only two (Alison). Researchers blame the vulnerability of the banana plants on the monogenetic farming, resulting from commercial motives. Plantation owners and farmers have been selectively replication bananas since the beginning of their cultivation 10,000 years ago, which is wherefore the modern cultivar is stoneless and sterile (Alison). This has resulted in banana crops with no genetic diversity, which leaves them helpless against environmental stresses, including disease and crop pests.Some experts predict that cultivation of the Cavendish banana will become unviable at heart the next 10-20 years, so agricultural researchers are searching for an equivalent banana cultivar, but it has proven difficult because most of the cultivars used in other countries produce bananas that are more starchy and thus used in cooking instead of eaten raw as a sweet snack. all over time, genetic modification and selective breeding of bananas has transformed what we know as a banana from a small, seed-filled, starchy, vehement banana to the huge-in-comparison Cavendish sugariness banana ( prefigure 1). Because of this, various hybridization and genetic engineering programs are exploring the vehement banana genomes in an attempt to produce a disease-resistant, mass-market banana (Wikipedia). Bananas represent a delicious and essential part of the worlds economy and food security, so hopefully the extensive agricultu ral research will pay off to grow a new banana that is pee-pee to ward off environmental pressures.Cavendish bananas are the most important cultivar in the world, representing all of the exports in the statistical figures discussed earlier The Cavendish dessert banana that is eaten raw and is most honey oil in the US is the one that is under attack by the Black Sigatoka fungus. why bananas instead of going through prompt.Figure 1 The common Cavendish dessert banana, left, is shown with the seed-filled wild variety (Mestel)BibliographyAlison, Robert. domain of a function Bananas are a Dying Breed. Globe and Mail. 19 July 2003. www.corpwatch.org Anania, Giovanni. How would a WTO agreement on bananas affect export and importing countries? July 2009, Issue Paper No.21, ICTSD Banana. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved 2013-01-04 Banana. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/banana Big-business cupidity killing the banana Independent, via The New Z ealand Herald, Saturday whitethorn 24, 2008, Page A19 FAOSTAT. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Van Wyk, Ben-Erik. Food Plants of the World, an Illustrated Guide. October 2005. tone Press. Koeppel, Dan. Banana The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World (New York Hudson Street Press, 2008), pp. 5153 ISBN 0-452-29008-2 Koeppel, Dan. Yes We entrust Have No Bananas. New York Times. 18 June 2008. Nelson, Ploetz & Kepler 2006, p.26Mestel, Rosie. Banana genome sequencing gives a boost to pest-plagued fruit. Los Angeles Times. 11 July 2012. http//articles.latimes.com