Costa Rica's National Banana Corporation (Corbana) urged all the parties involved in Latin America's banana sector to create a common front against the Fusarium Race 4 Tropical fungus, detected in Colombia, to prevent it from spreading throughout the region. The call was made on an event held by Corbana on November 21 in Miami, which was attended by experts from different banana regions of the world.
"We have enough reasons to be worried about and working against this pest. Bananas and plantains feed millions of people in the world, generate thousands of jobs, income, and development for producing countries," said the president of Corbana, Eduardo Gomez.
The Fusarium Foc R4T, which was detected in the summer of 2019 on four farms in La Guajira (northeast of Colombia), had not reached the American continent before thanks to a series of prevention measures, such as the sector not holding meetings in countries with banana or plantain crops. That's why this workshop was held in Miami.
The manager of Corbana, Jorge Sauma, raised the need for holding a summit of banana producing countries in Latin America, as has happened in Ecuador and Costa Rica in the past. Sauma also directed his message of creating a common front against the Fusarium to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), the World Banana Forum, the Institute Inter-American Cooperation for Agriculture (IICA) and other organizations, as well as the Ministries of Agriculture of all countries and the companies that provide inputs.
He also requested doubling the funds dedicated to Disease Research.
The wilt caused by the Fusarium Foc RF4T is one of the worst diseases that can harm banana and plantain Musaceae. The fungus is already present in Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, China, North Australia, India, Pakistan, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Mozambique and has destroyed some 100,000 hectares of banana crops in these countries.
In the meeting, which will continue on Friday 22, experts will inform banana producers of the entire region about the latest advances and measures to prevent this pest from affecting their plantations.
Source: Efe/ eldiario.es
