Cavendish now, Gros Michel then

FAO says Cavendish bananas dominate international trade and are the most widely consumed banana variety globally. [FAO] FAO’s factsheet says global banana production reached 139.3 million tonnes in 2023, with India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Ecuador as the leading producers. [FAO] In Hawai‘i, CTAHR lists Cavendish and Brazilians as the two major groups of dessert bananas, and the Cavendish group includes ‘Williams’, ‘Valery’, ‘Hamakua’, ‘Grand Nain’, and ‘Chinese’ varieties. [CTAHR]

Two researchers in a banana plantation under a blue sky: one kneels cutting a green bunch among large leaves, the other stands holding a green bunch on a hanging scale — Horticulturist Brian Irish (foreground) and technician Roberto Bravo harvest and weigh banana bunches from a USDA germplasm collection, photographed by Peggy Greb on 16 August 2007. Green bunches hang on the plants and from a field scale.Peggy Greb, USDA · Public Domain (USDA)

Gros Michel, FAO writes, used to dominate global exports until the 1950s, when widespread epidemics of Fusarium Race 1 (Foc R1) eliminated it from large-scale commercial production and the Cavendish subgroup became the new industry standard. [FAO] The Bluefields group, which includes ‘Bluefields’ and ‘Dwarf Bluefields’, was the leading commercial variety in Hawai‘i, and now accounts for less than 1% of banana production there because of its susceptibility to Panama wilt disease. [CTAHR] CTAHR lists the ‘Bluefields’ variety as ‘Gros Michel’. [CTAHR]

Those are two scales of the same shift: FAO on global exports, and CTAHR on Hawai‘i’s Bluefields group, listed as Gros Michel, now under one percent of local production because of Panama wilt.

A hand of seven yellow bananas with light brown spots, arranged on a plain white background — A hand of ripe yellow bananas photographed against a white background by Justus Blümer on 15 August 2011.Justus Blümer · CC BY 2.0

Cavendish now, Gros Michel then

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