Biotech Updates

FAO: Global Efforts Needed to Stop Deadly Banana Disease

January 7, 2015

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) calls for global efforts to combat a fungal disease affecting the banana industry, which provides income and food to about 400 million people globally. According to FAO and its partners, US$47 million is needed to provide assistance to the countries facing new outbreaks. The deadly Tropical Race 4 (TR4) strain of Fusarium wilt disease is severely affecting plantations in Indonesia, Philippines, and China.

"Fusarium wilt disease has been a major challenge in the history of banana production," said FAO's head of Plant Protection, Clayton Campanhola, at a meeting of experts at FAO headquarters in Rome last week. "After the devastation of TR4 in parts of Asia, we have to fear its spread in Africa, the Middle East and also to Latin America, and consider it as a threat to production globally."

Read more at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49672#.VKy-9yuUfE0.