“The disease was imported to Honduras in 1972 from Asia, and is now present across Latin America and the Caribbean,' Daniel Bebber told Newsweek.
Bananas are one of the world’s most important crops, but in recent decades, the plant has been severely affected by a devastating fungal disease known as Black Sigatoka.
“It requires continual spraying with fungicides in affected regions,” he said. As an example of the impact this has on farmers, “Costa Rican growers spray fungicides between 40 and 80 times per year, at a cost of $2,500 per hectare per year. This adds up to $100 Million for Costa Rica alone.” Bananas are particularly vulnerable to such diseases because the variety that is exported around the world—the Cavendish—is genetically uniform.
Bebber suggests that a significant factor behind this increased risk could be that climate change has made temperatures better for the spores of P. fijiensis to germinate and grow, while also making crop canopies wetter, in banana growing areas. Although the study found that, overall, the risk of infection increased in Latin America and the Caribbean, there were some areas—certain parts of Mexico and Central America, for example—where drier conditions have had the opposite effect
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