Climate change can drive up banana prices: Will India be affected?

Bananas are under threat from climate change and crop disease, which could likely drive up the prices of the staple fruit, an expert has warned. The world’s most exported fruit is vulnerable to temperature surges which can affect its production.

Wrapped in nature’s yellow wrapper, bananas are considered the most important fruit crop that provides nutrition and income for millions in both rural and urban areas across the world.

The World Banana Forum is holding its fourth conference in Italy’s Rome on Tuesday (12 March) to discuss the myriad challenges facing the fruit and how to make the production of the fruit crop more sustainable.

Let’s take a closer look.

The threats faced by bananas

Experts are worried about the growing threat of rising temperatures and diseases on banana supplies.

Speaking to BBC, Pascal Liu, senior economist at the World Banana Forum, said that climate change poses an “enormous threat” to the fruit crop, along with rapidly spreading diseases.

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The increasing temperatures are aiding the transmission of diseases in the fruit.

The most worrying is a banana-killing pest called Fusarium Wilt TR4 that has spread in Australia and Asia, moved to Africa, and now South America, as per the BBC report.

Fusarium Wilt, also called the Panama disease, was behind the almost decimation of once-dominant Gros Michel banana, reported The National News.

The fungus has mutated to kill the Cavendish, the world’s favourite variety today.

“We know that the spores of this Fusarium Wilt are extremely resistant, and they can be spread by flooding, they can be spread by strong winds,” Liu told BBC.

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“So, this type of phenomenon will disseminate the disease much faster than if you had more normal weather patterns.”

According to analysts at the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the fungal disease, severe weather, and rising fertiliser costs, are some of the factors responsible for the plunge in banana exports, The National News reported.

Banana growers are also hit by high energy and transport costs and worker shortages.

Liu warned that all these factors compounded by climate change ’s effect on supply could elevate the prices of the fruit crop in the United Kingdom and other places. “There will be some price increases, indeed. If there’s not a major increase in supply, I project that banana prices will remain relatively high in the coming years,” Liu of the World Banana Forum told BBC.

Last year, banana inflation in India jumped to 16.5 per cent in November from 2.2 per cent four months back. Traders and banana growers had blamed unseasonal rains and disease outbreaks for impacting the production in some areas, Economic Times (ET) reported at the time.

In 2022, global banana exports fell by over a million tonnes due to supply issues including weather and the fungal disease.

Impact on India, other nations

An estimated 100 billion bananas are consumed every year globally. India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of the fruit crop.

A 2019 study led by Dr Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter found that global warming had helped increase banana yields by 1.37 tonnes per hectare annually in 27 countries – which make up for 86 per cent of the world’s dessert banana production – since the 1960s. However, the study warned that these gains could significantly fall to 1.19-0.59 tonnes per hectare, or entirely disappear, by 2050 if global temperatures continue to rise, Indian Express reported.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, predicted that India and nine other countries, including Brazil — the world’s fourth largest producer — are likely to witness a plunge in banana yields.

“India could experience a major reversal with predicted negative effects of future climate change compared to positive effects in the past,” the authors wrote.

Meanwhile, other countries such as Ecuador (the largest exporter of bananas), Honduras and several African countries may register an overall increase in crop yields.

The study is important as bananas are the world’s most traded fruit. The UK alone imports about five billion bananas every year. Europe and the US are also major importers, while most of the top banana exporters in the world are in Central and South America.

A fall in global trade of the fruit would majorly hit the income of developing countries.

With inputs from agencies