WTF is Happening to Your Bananas? | Earth Explained!
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 1. 12. 2022
- đ Earth Explained! Series: âą Earth Explained
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The banana is one of the worldâs most popular fruits. From its origins in South-East Asia to grocery stores across the planet, its story is one of conflict, colonialism, and crop monocultures. Because most of the bananas we eat today come from the same plant: the Cavendish. And now disease threatens to wipe out this hybrid completely.
Is there any way to save the banana? It seems there could be: GMO technology. But many consumers - especially in Europe - are concerned about genetically modified crops. What are the risks and benefits, and could bananas change the way we manage food? Join producer Philip on a crash course in âbanana-ologyâ.
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đ Sources & References:
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(1)
VICE News: Bananas As We Know Them Are Doomed | CZcams âą Bananas As We Know The...
Johnny Harris: How the US Stole Central America (With Bananas)
âą How the US Stole Centr...
Business Insider: Why The Worldâs Most Popular Banana May Go Extinct | âą Why The Worldâs Most P...
CNBC: Why The Banana Business Of Chiquita And Dole Is At Risk | âą Why The Banana Busines...
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(2) Bananas Australia - Make those Bodies Sing. CZcams 5BgWrobc-sA
(3) The History Guy: How Bananas Changed the World. âą How Bananas Changed th...
(4) Dictionnaire pittoresque d'histoire naturelle et des phénomÚnes de la nature 1810 |
www.biodiversitylibrary.org/b...
(5) Flore d'AmeÌrique, dessineÌe d'apreÌs nature sur les lieux. Riche collection de plantes les plus remarquables, fleurs & fruits de grosseur & de grandeur naturelle 1843 |
www.biodiversitylibrary.org/b...
(6) Bakry et al. 2009: Banana Family Tree | pbs.twimg.com/media/EiXRi3pXY...
(7) Alexander von Humboldt Foundation: Emmanuelle Charpentier - Alexander von Humboldt Professorship 2014 (EN) | CZcams 85ZUjs-tY90
(8) Nobel Prize: Nobel Lecture: Emmanuelle Charpentier, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 | âą Nobel Lecture: Emmanue...
(9)World-first Panama disease-resistant Cavendish bananas | âą World-first Panama dis...
(10) nature CRISPR might be the bananaâs only hope against a deadly fungus | www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
(11) Pew Research Center: Widespread skepticism about the safety of genetically modified foods 2020: www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...
Hey friends! I'm intrigued: what about you? Would you eat a genetically modified banana? Oh, and don't forget to subscribe if you enjoy our content. There's much more to come.
Thing is we've been doing indirectly for thousands of years via artificial selection to make it more suitable for our consumption.
As long as they a bananas, it's all good đ
Unless there's unconsumable substance similar to nano-plastic from the side effects of modification then yeah
Or just grow regular bananas and eat them, like we do in India. We have a lot of variety here. And we can pick one according to our taste. May be that vil be bad for the" developed world's supply chain" , but we don't need to bend/break nature with GMfoods.
Especially after the disastrous human intervention in Australian ecology, I'm not sure of science taking fast steps without testing as our limitation is our knowledge itself. Let's give crisper some time to mature before introducing it to everyday life
@@Dr_Khanz
Well not everyone can grow certain crops like bananas. For example I live in Michigan which gets very cold to the point of freezing in winter, something a tropical plant like a banana tree cannot survive in.
I'm from Indonesia, and here we have many varieties of banana. Every type of banana have they specific size and diferents method of cooking. Like the green banana (Pisang Ambon) we use it as food supplement for babies or to make some kind of dessert. Pisang kepok is better for making fried banana. The best and expensive banana we called it 'Pisang Raja' or the King of banana is the sweetest one but the look is not as good as other type of banana. There is one that type of small banana too.
That's why I was so surprised when I moved to Europe I only find one type of banana and the taste is not as good as the banana in my country.
Beside, in my country, we cook the banana's flower and we use it's leaves as wrappers or plate too.
Hi Fransiska!
Thanks for the insights!
Weird thing about Cavendish that out country export is that local people don't like the way it looks with its spotless yellow skin they say its looks artificial. They prefer other varieties that has a lot of natural discolouration and better taste too.
I heard that the Gros Michel tasted better than Cavendish. Unfortunately we can't try it anymore
It had a higher content of Isoamyl acetate.
I live in Jamaica. I don't eat Cavandiah by choice. There are smaller, fatter, tastier bananas
Hi Veronica!
Yeah, we totally get you!
We are the Department of Biosystems, at Leuven University, hosting the biggest collection of banana varieties in the world. And we love this video. Because of its nuance. Bananas are a biosystem with a huge amount of parameters to be counted for: disease, climate heat, culture, taste, bioversity, economy, science, crispr-cas, ideology, genetics, history and even linguistics. Since banana is Arab for finger.
Talking about bananas is talking about the world and how everything is in touch with everything. Its why we love biosystems, although they still remain extremely complicated.
Thanks for the support! đ
hi Tera Mater- I'm from south India and we have more than 3 types of banana plants which give fruits with different characteristics. Cavendish is just one of these types
Yes! 03:54 âIndia is the banana capitalâ đ
3 types? In my backyard Ive more than 12 different varieties. I almost never heard Cavendish banana until the CZcams, never eaten it. Curiously I do have Grown Michel which produces goodish banana, unlike reported by Harris or Vox.
@@jeevad.tharan4179 it taste like robusta
To be honest while I like me some bananas, it would be nice to try some variety that isn't Cavendish. Not dissing on the Cavendish banana, it's good, but it's really all we get.
@@julm7744
What you're saying sounds similar to the Red Delicious (they taste bland and dry), a type of apple that was popular for the longest time but since waned with the rise of other superior types like Honeycrisp.
Here in India i have had different varieties of bananas all my life. Never even heard of 'Canvendish' outside of CZcams! đ€·
@@myselfyuvi
It's the only type of banana usually found in stores here, appearance wise it's yellow with tiny brown spots and medium size.
@@julm7744
I think one major part is that apples can be grown throughout the U.S. as the tree is adapted to temperate seasonal changes, with bananas the plant can only survive in a wet tropical environment so places for cultivation would limited to areas like south Florida.
@@julm7744 Dole is a brand from the Phillipines
I'm from Southeast Asia. We have _hundreds_ of banana types. Cavendish is the prettiest, since it's the most symmetrical, but it is the most meh, in terms of taste,
We get that!
Awesome video and top storytelling as usually ! Thank you for your work
Hi Be!
We're happy to hear that! Thanks for watching! :)
I only worry about the legal aspects. Who else remembers what happened to those corn farmers in India, whose corn was pollinated by patented plants? If these scientists are willing to donate this genome for the good of humanity, then fine - but we don't need any more monopolies on food or energy, than we already have to contend with, thank you. đ€đ
this is indeed an important issue. however, there are more & more voices who state that it can actually facilitate access to more resistant crops for local farmers. especially for plants like potatoes or bananas that are farmed through corms rather than seeds.
@@terramater This isn't really a response to the point. The problems of patenting and monopoly control of food systems is a major reason why there is a lack of trust around the technology. The safety concerns are also tied up in this, because of a lack of trust in effective regulation precisely because of monopoly power and political influence.
It's not enough to just say the tech could bring good things. It definitely could, but without accountability and trust, it'll go nowhere.
@@jubadiju Right, that's not a response and voices are not laws.
Fantastic video, thank you Terra Mater!
Thanks for watching it!
Vice was wrong?! đ€Ł Shocking!
A great and very intriguing video as usual! I'd love to try other types of banana as well
Hi Bryce!
Thanks for watching! Yes, there are a lot of comments saying that they taste much better
Why not bring back the Gros Michelle. It's was much more tastier as well as required fewer resources like cooling etc.
For the same reason that wiped it out in the first place: Panama disease. However: a resistent Gros Michel could be something...
Nothing hits you like Terra Matter! â€ïž
Thank you! â€ïž
This is a great video
Hi, Josh!
Thanks for watching! :)
Nice âșïžđ
Southeast Asians: what disease?
Can you do a video on Indian seed diversity
Thanks for the suggestion!
Why have I seen all those banana videos and still want to see one more?
Hi Siva!
Because this topic is so intriguing! :D
How many places in which bananas are a staple crop are they using (exclusively, mostly, or partly) cavendish? Everywhere I've seen sustenance farms in SE Asia (Viet Nam, Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia), bananas are indeed a part, but not cavendish. Big Mike/ Gros Michel (the preceding banana cash crop variety), lady fingers, plantains, and many others I don't know the names of were all more common than cavendish. Cavendish were almost exclusive to for-export super-plantations. As such, they were priced (much) higher than other varieties in local markets.
While I admit that I don't come close to knowing all the facts of all banana-growing sustenance farmers in these regions -- let alone the world, if cavendish aren't a widely common (let alone irreplaceable) staple crop, I don't see that as a particularly good argument for saving it, specifically.
Iâd love to have them genetically modify the gros micheal
I think about bananas constantly. They're 16 cents each at Aldi and I don't understand how they can get to my house in Pennsylvania from Central America at that price.
Hi Elisabeth!
Now you understand everything behind it!
wir sind so sehr gegen gentechnik ohne wirklich zu wissen warum. danke fĂŒr einen neuen denkansatz, love it
Hi, Marina!
Thanks for watching! :)
If you do not save the Bananas, Minions shall riot.
Train cancelled in Germany? My brain went: "Deutsche Bahnane" đ
I'm so sorry!
Bananas r the best snack, I try to eat them instead of cookies or something. Banana bread is not as healthy but Still great. Thank u Terra Mater for another great video.
Hi, Steve!
Banana bread is great đ€€
We're happy to hear that! Thanks for watching! :)
Unfortunately, in HK/ Thailand, we don't have only one type of banana...
The problem with GMO is not GMO itself but that they are almost always tied with giant companies that hold patents to their specific mutations and most GMO plants are genetically modified to not produce viable seeds, so the farmer is forced to buy from the company. Using USA as an example is a bad idea, because GMO are genuinely used for evil there with the whole Roundup controversy.
1) The problem of GMOs has more to do with the business practice of GMOs than the technology itself. When GMO and other industrial farming are meant to use less land, and fewer chemicals for higher production, in practice the agricultural business used more pesticides and more land and forms a price-controlling cartel
2) In the end, taste matters in the market; that is how people that know nothing about biology will judge GMOs. The whole golden rice was not the product of Monsanto or other agricultural production but golden rice still faced resistance.
I did a project about gmos
The first train cancelled during a strike! A greatly hilarious turn, I'm sorry to hear it for the story's sake, but mirthful no less as Philip is posed by the train platform. GM detraction is allied with GM benightedness with so consistent an alignment, one wonders whether the starting point need be found in cogent rhetorical blend with education.
11:26 as if the next argument isn't, can't they grow other crops?
There are plenty of Banana đ varieties in India which are better than Cavendish. Therefore you can forget getting your GMOs crops to Indiađźđł
TBH, Iâve unsubscribed from Johnny Harrisâs channel. Iâm all for trying to make sense out of complex issues but not at the expense of selecting convenient truths, splicing historical facts to suit your narrative (or agenda!) whilst fusing ignorance of significantly complex situations.
Same. He's as cocksure as he is smug. I bet he and Neil deGrasse Tyson would absolutely destroy (in a bad way) any party they were invited to. What's that noise? Oh, that's the vibe being sucked from what was otherwise a fabulous time we were just having. Damn.
Yeah I gave him the benefit of the doubt for a while, but now he should know what to do differently
He looks authentic, it's okay you should not believe everything on internet, but looks legit.
Me too , the guy go full woke and make videos based only on narrative.
Could you explain?
There are so many kinds of bananas. Bananas won't die even if the cavendish does. If you want a stronger, more natural, and tastier banana, why not just have a different banana?
Oftentimes, the more people know about genetic modification, the more they support consuming gmos
That is because they realize everything we eat is GMO either by traditional methods or engineered in a lab. Try to eat a non GMO tomato and it may actually kill you. That is what I say to nay-sayers. Not to mention that you may not even recognize the tomato in the first place.
I am now the banana expert in my friend group đ
We're happy about it! :D
2:46
Whereâs Johnny Harris? Idk probably california or washington or smth
Rescue the banana!
Yes!!! đ
You didn't really go into the real reasons why GMOs are so unpopular. Yes, many people are scared to eat GMOs because they don't trust them, but the real reason they are banned in many places has to to with other much more capitalist factors such as market protectionism, and the fact that GMOs can be patented and thus the farmer looses control over their crops etc. With banana's its very simply, make the GMO bananas and if those that aren't GMO die out, people will eat the GMO ones rather than go without, and if they non-GMO ones don't die out, it may be because there are enough GMO ones to reduce the spread of the diseases, a win win for everyone.
I guess the biggest issue with such fears is that nobody conducts any long-term studies because they're too expensive. Similar problems occur with medicine - as with GMOs, this is less of an issue in the US, where people are also much less reluctant to consume drugs for many minor issues and voilĂĄ, you got your opioid-crisis. Even I, who hadn't even been born back then, knows of the Contergan tragedy, which could have been prevented with thorough testing. Is it really a surprise a large number of people opposed the covid vaccine without any conducted long-term studies? Sure, in this case it needed to go fast, but that doesn't matter for the fears.
As long as short-term profit of a few rich people on the expense of the masses, who do not have the knowledge of how these technologies work, is the driving force of our technological advancement, these fears will stay.
why did you put niko from g2 on the thumbnail ?????
I mean, it's weird that bananas don't have seeds
Only some dont
@@julm7744 And some full of seeds that make it hard to eat
Naturally, at least in my country in Indonesia the young banana grow from the root of the older banana (banana shoots). So there are always a group of banana trees in one spot, because once the banana produce it's fruit, they will die and the new banana shoots will replace them.
As a brilliant man named homer Simpson one said, why arenât we funding this?
I don't know why people refuse to accept anything GMO, but see the hundreds of years of purposeful inbreeding as "natural". I say: GMO is a better alternative, where we introduce wanted traits and remove unwanted ones, without affecting the rest of the organism
There is risk of these bananas being patented and resulting in a new form of banana republics. We need to create some sort of protection for farmers and poorer countries. To be clear genetically modifying these bananas is not the problem it is the behaviour of corporate entities.
I enjoy your videos but i feel that if we do find a GMO version of the cavendish resistant to the diseases which threaten its existence this would not help your aim of a better world in regards to enviromentalism as it encourages the establishment of more plantations of monocultures and these would inevitably encourage the clearing of rainforest for these plantations as these farmers have nothing to fear the monocultures will impact biodiversity and will become 'green deserts'
and that's why you don't rely on public transport lol
đ
im prettty sure theres a dozen or so videos about bananas. i totally learned nothing new in this video.
Did the Deutsch Bahn strike again???? It's a whole another experience to see it happen to someone else in a video.
Hi Anand!
This was in Austria :D so the ĂBB
Here in indonesia we sometimes see Cavendish as "white people banana" (no racism intended). We usually still use different types of bananas like "pisang tanduk" "pisang raja" "pisang kepok" etc for different kinds of cuisines
we'd love to try all of them! đ
Hi JJ!
Thanks for the insight!
@@terramater you're welcome! Just to add there's also pisang mas, pisang ambon, pisang uli, pisang susu, pisang lampung, and pisang klutuk!
đ±
If you are going to resurrect a banana they should at least do the gros michael first
Lol. The word for banana in arabic is said "mouz" not "mavous"
đ«Ł it's embarrassing: I have an arabic last name and still manage to butcher every single word in arabic. đ
The EU is full of irrational regulations, GMO ban is the simply the best example. I really love that you explained why we cannot let the banana die. It is so important not to forget how this world is interconnected.
I always compare it with prohibiting hammers. Because you can use a hammer to kill people, but also for its actual purpose, for construction. In the same manner, it doesn't make sense to prohibit CRISPR/Cas just because it can be misused. What should be regulated by law is not the TOOL, but its different APPLICATIONS.
@@spulwasser Agreed ! This tool will come as handy in many ways with our changing climate. We will surely need great innovations to achieve the GHG reductions necessary to a 1.5 degree warming cap.
MOBSA !!!
Johnny Harris was not wrong. What he was trying to explain was how lobbying made US eat just one kind of banana.
South Asian countries have different varieties to pick from. But US doesn't bcos they lobbies made you belive that it's the best, you haven't tasted others to diss them, you just belived what they told and rallied behind.
And now with the disease, it was an option to switch to variety of banana by changing logistics, but then they made you think to save Cavendish and stick to it and do monoculture so that their logistics won't change ,so profits stays.
The root of problem was monoculture. Just change that. You get variety of banana. Options in life. â€ïž
I agree. and yes: maybe 'wrong' really was not the right choice of wording here. what I meant is that they predicted such a dark future for the banana and I believe this doesn't have to be this way.
Another reason why monoculture is such an unsustainable practice. There is no natural, untouched ecosystem that have only ONE type of plant. Monoculture only profit, capitalism, supply chain and sorting machines and humans, not the ecosystem.
I strongly support the right kind of GMO. But I think the intelectual property side needs radically different legislation to prevent too much power being held by any one group.
There are a plenty of native varieties which are disease resistant and more nutritious than Cavendish!!
This and inaccuracies in China vid is why unsubscribed from Johnny. Good vid terra matter
GMO is the future
This is Bananas!
đ
GMOs are great.
Vor allem Phrasen und AllgemeinplĂ€tze. Und die Begeisterung von Leuten, die von der Möglichkeit mit ihrer "Forschung" reich und berĂŒhmt zu werden besoffen sind. Der Beitrag wĂŒrde besser in eine Kanal Plastik Mater passen.
Very rare to see someone being that open about transgenics. I'm in the small minority that knows they are okay (while some are evil and made to tolerate more herbicides). Nice cover on the ssubject!
Agradecemos o feedback, Everton! :)
Hey
There appears to be a lot of misinformation in this video.
Like what?
*herb
GMO foods are not problematic. We've been modifying plants forever at whatever our technology level was. If you don't like GMO foods, try surviving on teosinte instead of corn.
not a single critical word about GMO
Is this a GMO ad? What's wrong with the fruit as it is? and please don't equate selective breeding with GMO since we have been doing selective breeding for centuries, also it's a pretty slow process allowing our bodies to adapt to the side effects.
All this hype about the "fate of the banana" a great narrative for genetic engineering, echoed for a decade or so, does not actually equate doom for bananas. Bananas are abundant in all sorts of varieties. Let the Cavendish go. It's tasteless anyway. I don't buy that nothing else can be shipped.
Don't say it's a Euro-American problem....most Americans are fine with GMOs...the rest are vegans. The Europeans are the ones anal about GMOs...GMO crops have fed the world, often in places that would be too inhospitable to grow non-GMO such as in Africa. Without them millions would have died already...
Agree. It always seems to be that Vice and Vox are overblown...
Johnny Harris is a good story teller but he is wrong quite often.
I have stopped listening to him because of that
đ video
đđđ
Being anti-gmo is anti-science af
Cavendish is sour and bland. Lakatan banana is supreme.
Lately the videos feel like they're pushing certain ideas and really cherry picking information to fit that narrative. Also a not of negativism towards others without actually proving anything was 'wrong'. For example here they have Herve Vandreschuren which is a pretty big name in the field, his lab in Belgium does great work, but they just cut a few seconds of him talking. We can use different species and subspecies, and we can breed new variants. The only reason many countries have only the Cavendish in stores is the choice of a handful of companies that control the trade in the west. This isn't a genetics problem, a farming problem or a socio-economical problem. This is an oligopoly and lobbying problem.
Thanks for this constructive feedback, Leto. There are sooo many things to talk about when it comes to the banana and it's really hard to cover all aspects in a 10-15min video. We're thinking about publishing the entire interview with Prof. Vanderschuren for those interested. In it, we've discussed many of the points you address in your comment; yet it's over an hour long đ. And you're right maybe "wrong" sounds a bit misleading: they've just missed one important topic out and predicted a dark future for the banana variety that the "northern hemisphere" consumes. My research convinced me that new technologies could bring a larger variety to European & American supermarkets while providing access to more resistent crops for farmers in Africa and Central/South America.
â@@philipalcazar I hope you understand where I'm coming from. Seeing a channel that wants to be informative, use clickbaity titles and talking about known problem as if it's something new, and framing the narrative as if GMO's are the only solution, when the sollution has been know before anyone here was even born... it's a bit strange.
I mean the Gros Michel collapse was the literal example given to us in high school biology back in the day.
The risk of monoculture asexual propagated crops has been identified since ancient times by illiterate peasants, they didn't know the science behind it but it was not hard to figure out there is a problem when a whole field of grapes died from vine rot. So people started planting at least 2 types.
What's next? This hot new thing called crop rotation?
People have been farming for thousands of years and have identified these problem a long long time ago.
The only reason we're not applying best practices today, is that chemical and industrial advances allowed us to shift agriculture from life sustaining to profit focused. When the only reason for an activity is the profit you squeezed from it, the activity itself doesn't matter.
it just feels weird to see educated people talk about an old problem as if it's new, and propose a single solution while simultaneously throwing a few jabs here and there at countries and cultures, but not at the billion dollar corporations that actually control that specific trade.
You are leaving out the IP problem. In the current legal setup, whoever modifies the banana will own it. Will own a living (albeit infertile in this case) organism.
There's plenty of abuses of this system in the US and in the developing world.
I would fix this, then deal with the anti-GMO crowd.
I've actually talked about this issue with Prof. Vanderschuren as well but it didn't end up in this video. In his opinion the opportunities are far greater than the threats. We will probably publish the full interview soon!
I still think we should be careful with GMO's, sure it can really enhance current farming practices and thereby increase biodiversity. But at the same time, it can also really harm biodiversity.
What if for example a crop that has genetically been altered to become more insect resistant starts spreading in the wild and become dominant over the native crops of the same species? The insects would be affected potentially dying out, and so would the rest of the ecosystem be. What you bring up about careful testing in the laboratory is therefore indeed a key aspect in this process. At the same time, in our current capitalist economy we all know that profit goes before the planet. So if you can produce a supercrop that is harmfull for the environment but can make the company superrich the choice that company makes might be more money then enviromentally based.
Overpopulation will prevent proper agricultural practices.
Iâm seeing a pattern of Harris being wrongâŠ
The commentator is lousy
Not even a minute in and I'm very skeptical about how much I can trust your scientific reporting. You're calling the plants they grow on "trees". And you expect me to believe you've actually researched and are presenting correct information? (I haven't watched the rest of the video, I just think it's extremely lax and unprofessional to make such a basic mistake.)
@@julm7744 Terra Mater pride themselves on being a scientific channel. Bananas are a herb, not a fruit. They donât grow on trees either. It may sound pedantic, but it's the small things. If they don't pay attention to the small details, how can we trust that they pay attention to the big details?
@@julm7744 You are correct that palms and bamboo are not trees, which is why I don't call them trees. I don't care what you call banana plants where you live, it's still wrong to call them trees. Same with palms and bamboo. (Who says "bamboo tree" anyway? I don't think that's a term in the English language. It's not even called a tree in Chinese. It's ç«čć (pronounced zhĂșzi) in Chinese, which does not include the character or radical for tree.) The fact that the general public may be ignorant of the fact that bananas don't grow on trees does not excuse the fact that they call it a tree in this video. This is an educational channel presenting scientific information and they hurt their credibility by making such a rookie mistake.
bla bla bla
I've long unsubscribed from Johnny Harris' channel. Too much manipulative and one-sided reporting.
Best question to shut down this lexicon gibberish: Who cares?
Can you do a video on Indian seed diversity