Slouching toward a bananapocalypse?

by Heather Smith
11 Nov 2011 1:00 PM

For years journalists have warned of imminent banana extinction. "Get bananas while you still can," wrote New Scientist over five years ago. "The world's most popular fruit ... is in deep trouble," it went on to say, adding that the banana would probably be out of supermarkets by 2013, and would soon exist only in backyard gardens and other places the Panama Race IV, a pathogen taking out plantations in Southeast Asia, couldn't reach.


But today -- just a few years from the banana's supposed demise -- one can walk down the street and find bananas in the nearest corner store, hanging out between the cash register and the lottery tickets. What gives? Are we still heading toward bananapocalypse? Or has it been cancelled? And what can the banana tell us about the evolution of our global food supply?