Hardly any other fruit is as popular as the banana. It is sweet, practical for travelling and filling. Bananas - which in this country are almost always of the Cavendish variety - are one of the most eaten fruits in Switzerland.

For some years now, however, our much-loved banana has been under threat. A new disease - specifically a fungus called Tropical Race 4 - is increasingly threatening the variety. This is reported by SRF podcast News Plus. The fungus has it all: it not only infects the banana, but is even capable of killing the entire plant in a short space of time. The disease thus destroys entire harvests. This means a huge loss for the affected farmers and it can take a long time before the replacement for the dead plants bears fruit again. Banana lovers in faraway Switzerland have hardly noticed this so far, as the local purchasing power is sufficient to import bananas from other growing regions. Over the years, however, bananas will probably become rarer and more expensive.

Bananas have been threatened with extinction before

However, a genetically modified Cavendish banana could now provide relief for the farmers affected: The first of its kind has been authorised in Australia. This differs from the conventional banana in only one gene. Specifically, this is a gene that was cut out of a wild ancestor of the Cavendish banana. This was responsible for making the banana resistant to certain diseases - including the new fungus.

Incidentally, such a ‘catastrophic’ banana disease already existed in the past: before the Cavendish banana, in the first half of the twentieth century, the so-called ‘Big Mike’ banana was the most popular banana. One of the reasons why this variety was so popular with consumers was that it had no seeds. In the 1950s, however, a disease made life difficult for ‘Big Mike’. As there was no genetic engineering at the time of ‘Big Mike’, a completely new variety had to be developed. The Cavendish banana, which was resistant at the time, was the answer.

New breeding technologies are increasingly in demand

Now - a good 70 years later - a new fungus has emerged that is destroying the banana trees. However, the Cavendish banana is not alone in its problems: numerous other fruit and vegetable varieties are also suffering from new diseases that are spreading rapidly. Crops that are propagated using seedlings (so-called vegetative propagation) are particularly susceptible, as this means that all plants are very closely related and therefore equally susceptible to the same disease - which is precisely the case with banana trees. However, many crops are also propagated vegetatively in this country, such as potatoes (remember late blight, which caused famine in Europe in the 19th century), garlic and asparagus. The consequences of climate change, among other things, are constantly throwing a spanner in the works for producers. Calls for new breeding technologies are therefore becoming louder and louder.

But why couldn't mixed cultures be the salvation of bananas? As Remco Stam, researcher and professor of plant pathology, explains to ‘SRF’, banana plantations are often very large and should produce fruit that is as uniform as possible so that harvesting, storage and transport can be carried out easily and more cost-effectively. ‘Of course, this is usually rather difficult with mixed crops,’ says Stam. Higher prices would be the result.

Why more robust varieties are increasingly in demand

Particularly for crops with little diversity, such as bananas, which are propagated by seedlings and where consumers are used to consistent quality, new breeding technologies or, as in this case, more ‘old-fashioned’ cis-gene techniques offer attractive opportunities to meet these requirements. Interest in breeding more robust varieties is growing. Although research on the GM banana is promising, it still has to be cultivated and proven in agricultural practice.

If you think about the variety and flavour, which should remain the same, potatoes would be an interesting example for Switzerland - similar to bananas. The Swiss parliament has already shown itself to be open to new breeding technologies. After the National Council, the Council of States has also spoken out in favour of relaxing the moratorium on genetic engineering. Meanwhile, things are also moving in the EU. This is urgently needed if Switzerland and the EU are not to be left even further behind.