No slippery skin for bananas

Importer claims a fungus threatens NZ’s favourite fruit are exaggerated.

Lovers of bananas – New Zealand’s favourite fruit– can rest easy. Scientific reports suggesting the banana could be wiped out within ten years by a fungus known as Panama disease have been rejected as “greatly exaggerated” by Steve Barton, general manager of Dole NZ, one of the country’s largest importers of the fruit.

“We can assure the public there will never be a shortage from a fungus threat,” he says. “From our perspective, it ’s never been a scare.

“The truth is, we reproduce bananas from tissue culture. You take the sucker ( shoot) growing off the mother plant back to the lab, you chop it into small pieces, put it in a petri dish, and it will grow a new plant. As long as you can do that, you can reproduce.

“So there’s never going to be a shortage of plant material. Obviously, once it ’s planted out you’re dealing with all the usual range of issues that you do in any orchard, but the concept that they will die out just isn’t feasible.” He points out the scale of the industry— more than 100m tonnes are produced in over 130 countries each year – also protects the fruit ’s future.

“They’re grown in Latin and Central America; they’re grown in the Philippines; we are now planting in Sri Lanka; we are also planting in Vietnam.

“Part of the reason for that is to spread the crop around so that if disease is found somewhere, you still have a disease- free supply. Disease doesn’t totally decimate the crop – it might take out a percentage before you get on top of it – and we’re working on systems to prevent exposure to shortages of fruit supply.

Dole has been certified since 2013 by the Rainforest Alliance – a

non– government organisation based in New York working to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods through land- use and business practices – and carries the alliance’s Green Frog sticker.

Barton says Dole is aware there has been public scepticism surrounding large corporations which produce food in Third World countries; internationally there have been allegations of child labour practices and claims some plantation workers have been exposed to harmful chemicals.

But Barton believes much of this is misplaced: “The bad stories that came out of Central and South America are very old, and if you look into them, they’re over- inflated. A lot of the propaganda is not true,” he says.

“You have to remember that you can’t treat people in Third World countries badly, particularly in Asia, where they have very strong principles about the way they live their lives – you don’t have staff for your farms if you don’t look after them.

The alliance itself has come in for criticism from some quarters for providing a platform for large corporations to “greenwash” ( a practice of making unsubstantiated or misleading claims about the environmental benefits of a product). But Barton says the alliance is a world leader in certifying sustainability and responsible sourcing of products.

He says Dole’s farms meet the alliance’s standards for environmental sustainability, social equity and economic well– being.

“People have become more and more aware of what they’re eating and more conscious of knowing where it has come from and under what conditions it was produced.”

He says Dole has for several years had International Organisation for Standardisation ( ISO) certification for social and environmental practices, as well as Global Gap ( internationally recognised standards of good agricultural practice), which promote the safe and responsible production of fruit and vegetables.

“These aren’t marketing tools; they are assurances to retailers. Our biggest customer, Foodstuffs, needs to know we have these certifications – and so too do the public.”