Wild Bananas Disappearing

ROME - May 3/06 - SNS -- Plant breeders are losing important sources of genetic material because of the continuing disappearance of exotic and wold banana species, warns the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

India is the world's biggest banana grower, with an annual production of 16.8 million metric tons (MT), or over 20% of total world output of 72.6 million MT in 2005.

But over exploitation and the loss of forests as a result of encroachment and logging, slash-and-burn cultivation and urbanization are causing a rapid loss of wild banana species that have existed in India for thousands of years. Among them are the ancestors of the Cavendish variety, the large, pulpy dessert banana which currently accounts for virtually all of world trade, amounting to nearly 20 million MT a year.

Cooking bananas and plantains - eaten fried, boiled, baked or chipped -- are the staple food of 400 million people in the developing world, while bananas are also used to make fiber and beer. In India, they play an important role in traditional medicine.

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