While this helps to raise awareness of the importance of bananas in the world and the threats faced by banana farmers, it is important not to lose sight of the facts and to point to the positive progress that researchers are making to address these challenges.

The New Scientist article focussed on concerns over the spread of a new form of Panama disease (Fusarium wilt) - known as race 4 - which is threatening the Cavendish variety, the world’s major export banana. The disease has spread through plantations in Australia, South Africa and parts of Asia. It is only a matter of time before race 4 reaches the hub of commercial production in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Cavendish took over as the No. 1 dessert banana in the 1960s from the Gros Michel, a variety that had dominated world markets until it fell prey to an earlier form of Panama disease. So fears are justified.

Cavendish bananas are already under attack from another fungal disease, black Sigatoka, but are protected commercially by as many as 40 sprayings a year of fungicide. The sprayings are not only expensive, making up a quarter of production costs, but present a serious risk to workers and a threat to the environment.

Unlike black Sigatoka, which attacks leaves, race 4 is a soil-borne fungus that attacks roots and cannot be controlled by fungicides. If race 4 reaches the commercial plantations, it is likely to wipe out Cavendish just as the earlier disease eradicated Gros Michel. The only option is to find another variety that resists race 4.

While the loss of the Cavendish would hurt consumers in developed countries, diseases have an even more severe impact on other types of banana, of which there are more than 500 varieties. Banana exports make up just 13% of world production. The other 87% represents bananas that never leave the country where they are produced. In the developing world banana is the most important food in terms of production value after rice, wheat and maize. Most banana farmers subsist on very limited margins and cannot afford the expensive chemicals to keep diseases in check.

Epidemic diseases that attack these bananas undermine the very roots of food and income security for millions of people in the developing world. New resistant varieties are needed urgently.

What makes it difficult to breed new, improved varieties is that cultivated bananas are sterile and do not have seeds. They are propagated as suckers, or shoots, which arise from the base of the plant underground. There is no easy way to cross one variety with another. It is only in the past 10 years, after more than 80 years of research, that improved varieties acceptable for large-scale production have been made available.

Only five scientists, globally, are pres ently working to breed improved bananas. Such a meagre research effort is decidedly out of proportion to the scale and importance of the problem. But currently there is alarmingly little investment in banana research compared to the global significance of the crop. This must be reversed if the world’s most popular fruit, an important survival food for families in the tropics, is not to decline further.

With the progress already made, if we can mobilise new and significant investment, there is every reason to believe that the banana will provide food and income security for those families for many years to come.

· Nearly 100 million tonnes of banana and plantain are produced globally every year by about 120 countries in subtropical and tropical zones.

· The export trade concerns around only about 12.5 million tonnes of banana.

· Roughly equal amounts are produced from each of the regions of Asia, Latin America with the Caribbean, and Africa.

· There are more than 500 varieties of banana in the world. The Cavendish banana is the one that is exported and found on supermarket shelves. It represents just one var iety.

· The highest rate of consumption is in East Africa. Ugandans produce 10.5 million tonnes, around 450 kg per year per person. The word for bananas "matooke" also means "food".

· 99.5% of banana-eaters in the world are eating varieties of banana that ha ve been selected by farmers and haven’t changed in centuries.

· The fruit is one of the most easily digested foods available, and is particularly useful in feeding infants, the frail or ailing (and sportsmen in need of quick energy), providing a good source of potassium, calcium, phosphorus, vitamins A, B6 and C.

· Black Sigatoka causes yield declines of up to 50%. Commercial plantations follow a very intensive regime of fungicide spraying – up to 40 times a season -- to combat black Sigatoka.

· Almost all cultivated bananas are difficult to breed because they are seedless and sterile. They also take up to 18 months to fruit, which prolongs breeding efforts compared to annual crops.

· Improved varieties produced by classical breeding have started to become available in the past 10 years. They have not yet been planted on a large scale.

· Cuba is the first country to use improved varieties of banana on a significant scale. They have planted more than 11,000 ha. As a result, farmers have experienced yield increases and made annual savings of US$3 million on spraying.

· Biotechnology can speed up research dramatically. Classical plant breeding can use biotechnologies to see which varieties are worth pursuing. And genetic modification is one biotechnology that could be used to breed improved varieties of banana. In cases where varieties are totally sterile, it is the only available solution. Genetically manipulated bananas would be environmentally safe because the banana is sterile and modified genes would not be able to escape from the transformed crop.

· Plantain is one kind of cooking banana. It represents a group of bananas that are popular in parts of South Asia, West Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) is a programme of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), one of the Future Harvest centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

INIBAP coordinates research and carries out hundreds of projects worldwide on the smallholder banana crop. It manages the largest collection of banana germplasm in a genebank held at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) in Belgium.

Future Harvest (www.futureharvest.org) is a global nonprofit organization that builds awareness and support for food and environmental research for a world with less poverty, a healthier human family, well-nourished children, and a better environment. Future Harvest supports the 16 food and environmental research centers that are primarily funded through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (www.cgiar.org).