The biggest tragedy is that no one knows how many species have already been lost because there hasn’t been a proper stocktaking of the banana. Experts at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation(FAO), who work on food security for the most vulnerable, are worried about the shrinking gene pool in India. It was the country’s rich biodiversity that helped create seed-free commercial and disease-resistant bananas over time. India’s loss can easily be the world’s loss.
The affordable "food-fruit" is the source of sustenance for 400 million people in developing countries, including millions in India. Any danger to the crop affects food security, banana being the fourth most important food after rice, wheat and maize. The large, pulpy, spotless Cavendish banana, which accounts for $4.7 billion in annual world exports, came from Indian ancestors.
"You need diversity to develop new varieties, to fight new diseases. In nature, that’s how it is," saysFAO’s resident banana expert, NeBambi Lutaladio. He is concerned about the loss of biodiversity in India as are senior scientists atFAO. Next month, world attention will focus on genetic resources when ministers attend the first ever governing body meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in Madrid. A highly contentious treaty, it took 28 years to negotiate after pitched battles between the rich and poor countries over how to define, preserve and share benefits from genetic resources. Since India was a keen participant and one of the first countries to sign it, it has an obligation to preserve genetic resources on its soil.
Banana is one of the 40 crops listed by the treaty which must be protected. Even though India produces 16.8 million tonnes of the fruit annually, or over 20 per cent of world output of 72.6 million, all is not well with"kalpatharu"—the plant of all virtues of ancient Hindu texts. A recent report by Uma Subbaraya of India’s National Research Centre for Banana in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, released byFAO in Rome, says many species once widely known in India’s northeastern states have either disappeared or have a very small presence today.
The most important loss is of Musa acuminata burmannicoides, a species known for resisting the dreaded Sigatoka leaf spot disease which has threatened crops from Fiji to Zimbabwe. Only one of its clone remains in Calcutta’s botanic garden. "This has been an eyeopening tragedy witnessed by Musa scientists in the last four to five decades," Subbaraya wrote. Her assessment after interviewing scores of people in some 300 villages was grim about the loss from ‘jhum’ or slash-and-burn cultivation.
Jhum is an old practice specially used by indigenous people in the northeast where tribals clear forest for planting and then leave it fallow for regeneration. Whereas earlier the land was left fallow for 15 or 20 years giving it enough time to regenerate, today the twin pressures of population and shrinking forests have reduced the rest period to three to five years. Add to slash-and-burn the uncontrolled grazing by animals owned by the tribals, natural fires, pest and disease epidemics, and the forest cries for cover.