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To most people in temperate countries, the banana is a healthy snack wrapped in an easy-to-peel skin that conveniently changes colour when the fruit is ripe. No wonder it is often more popular than locally grown fruits. It would be a mistake, however, to think that in its home turf—the tropics—the banana is a lesser crop that only became valuable when Westerners discovered it.
The first clue that this is not so is the fact that less than 15% of the bananas grown in the world end up in the supermarkets of importing countries. The rest are grown in smallholdings and eaten locally, more often than not as a staple food. The cooking types are especially important. In some places, people eat close to 1 kg of bananas every day. They can eat in two weeks what the average North American and European munch on in a year.
The second clue comes from the hundreds of varieties that exist, some 1000 according to experts. Besides their intrinsic value to farmers and consumers, these varieties constitute a reservoir of variability from which solutions to pest and disease problems and the stresses brought about by a changing climate and a degraded land base can be drawn. However, many of them—not to mention their wild relatives—are disappearing at an alarming rate.
The various ways in which bananas are important to millions of people in the tropics is the starting point of a traveling exhibition, No end to the banana, which also explores how research can improve their lives. For an overview of the exhibition and information on hosting it, click here.
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Why bananas matter 