Yes, we will have no bananas

Who knew? This is news to me:

Yes, We Will Have No Bananas
a NYT article by Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.


Here's one paragraph:

That bananas have long been the cheapest fruit at the grocery store is astonishing. They’re grown thousands of miles away, they must be transported in cooled containers and even then they survive no more than two weeks after they’re cut off the tree. Apples, in contrast, are typically grown within a few hundred miles of the store and keep for months in a basket out in the garage. Yet apples traditionally have cost at least twice as much per pound as bananas.

And another paragraph:

Once bananas had become widely popular, the companies kept costs low by exercising iron-fisted control over the Latin American countries where the fruit was grown. Workers could not be allowed such basic rights as health care, decent wages or the right to congregate. (In 1929, Colombian troops shot down banana workers and their families who were gathered in a town square after church.) Governments could not be anything but utterly pliable. Over and over, banana companies, aided by the American military, intervened whenever there was a chance that any “banana republic” might end its cooperation. (In 1954, United Fruit helped arrange the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala.) Labor is still cheap in these countries, and growers still resort to heavy-handed tactics.

And a summary:

Perhaps it’s time we recognize bananas for what they are: an exotic fruit that, some day soon, may slip beyond our reach.

You really ought to go read the whole article.
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NOTE: The photo shows Cavendish bananas (from Wikipedia), "the only banana we see in our markets," according to this article. There used to be another variety that was tastier, until a fungus called Panama disease wiped it out. And ... it could happen again.