BBC Claims ‘Climate Change’ Causing Banana Price Increases

Last week the BBC claimed bananas will become more expensive, because ‘climate change’ is going to affect banana production

It is not a long article, so I reproduce it in full, intersperced with my own comments.

Bananas are set to get more expensive as climate change hits a much-loved fruit, one of the world’s top experts from the industry tells BBC News.

Pascal Liu, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, says climate impacts pose an “enormous threat” to supply, compounding the impacts of fast-spreading diseases.

Which diseases are these? We are not told.

The World Banana Forum meets in Rome on Tuesday to discuss the challenges.

Some UK shops recently experienced banana shortages due to sea storms.

In its natural yellow wrapper, the nutritious and tasty banana is the world’s most exported fruit.

The UK alone imports around 5 billion bananas ever year, with around 90 percent sold through the major supermarkets.

Last week saw shortages of bananas in several UK supermarkets, which retailers said were down to storms at sea, delaying supplies.

Most consumers won’t have noticed, according to Prof Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter, who has studied efforts to make bananas more sustainable.

“The supply chain fluctuates but the UK is actually quite good at buffering those types of effects,” he told BBC News.

“Mainly, because the ripening centres can accelerate or decelerate the rate at which they ripen the bananas when they arrive, which helps to buffer those types of fluctuations.”

If this is the case, why bother to sensationalise it like this?

But while banana supplies can cope with short-term weather events like this, experts are concerned about the growing threats from a warming world, and from the diseases that are spreading in its wake.

There is that reference to spreading diseases again.

“I think climate change is really an enormous threat to the banana sector,” said Mr Liu of the World Banana Forum, a UN umbrella group that brings together industry stakeholders including retailers, producer countries, exporters and research institutions.

Just because you ‘think’ the weather is affecting banana production Mr Liu, that does not make it a fact.

Notice also the World Banana Forum is an agency of the UN, whose main role these days seems to be to make people afraid of the weather.

As well as severe weather impacting production, bananas are sensitive to temperature rises which could wipe out crops in some locations.

A simple internet search revealed this chart from Our World In Data, which shows banana production from 1961 to 2021. Can you see a drop in banana production there?

Perhaps the biggest immediate threat is the fact that rising temperatures are helping to spread disease.

The one causing the most worry is Fusarium Wilt TR4, a fungal infection, which has moved from Australia and Asia to Africa and now to South America.

Ah, now they tell us of a disease.

Once a plantation is infected, it kills all the banana trees and experts say it is extremely hard to get rid of.

The fungus has also mutated to threaten the Cavendish, the world’s favourite banana variety.

“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,” said Mr Liu.

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

Producers are also facing pressures from rising costs of fertilisers, energy and transport as well as problems in finding enough workers.

So increasing prices are mainly due to fertiliser & transport costs and lack of workers.

Taken together with the impacts of climate change on supply, prices in the UK and elsewhere are likely to go up – and stay up.

What impacts? We are not told, because there are none. We are just expected to believe without question.

“There will be some price increases, indeed,” said Mr Liu. “If there’s not a major increase in supply, I project that banana prices will remain relatively high in the coming years.”

Among the issues that the banana industry will discuss at its gathering in Rome is the critical question of sustainability.

Consumers are increasingly looking to buy bananas and other commodities that are produced in a sustainable way.

Are they? Everyone I’ve spoken to about food prices are unconcerned about ‘sustainability’.

For banana growers this means not only making their means of production greener, but also paying independent examiners to certify that their fruit are sustainable.

“These regulations are a good thing in a way because they help producers seize the opportunity of making their production systems more sustainable,” said Mr Liu.

“But of course, they also come with costs for producers because they require more control and monitoring systems on the part of the producers and the traders. And these costs have to trickle down to the final consumers.”

So even more costs are being imposed on producers, which they pass on to us. This is the main reason banana prices will increase.

It has little or nothing to do with the climate, but of course the BBC want you to think everything is connected to a ficticious collapsing of our ecosystem.

See the BBC article here bbc.co.uk

Header image: Everyday Health

About the author: Andy Rowlands is a university graduate in space science and British Principia Scientific International researcher, writer and editor who co-edited the new climate science book, ‘The Sky Dragon Slayers: Victory Lap

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Comments (4)

  • Avatar

    Howdy

    |

    Bananas and the bbc – quite appropriate. 😀

    “The World Banana Forum”
    New title for the bbc!

    Gave me something of a chuckle, Andy, thanks.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      Andy Rowlands

      |

      No worries H, glad I could raise a smile 🙂

      Reply

  • Avatar

    Lorraine

    |

    Yes we have no bananas, we have no bananas today.
    I heard that nonsense lyric as a child from my mother pretending to be Chiquita Banana.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    VOWG

    |

    The people of the world world have become a farce. They create the problems and wonder why the problems exist.

    Reply

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