According to a study conducted by the University of Exeter, UK, climate change and global warming will have an adverse effect on banana yields. The study bears implications for India, the world’s largest cultivator and consumer of the crop. It was published in September 2019 in the journal Nature Climate Change. The research team made use of sophisticated modeling techniques to assess the recent and future impact of climate change on global dessert banana yield. Researchers studied banana yields in 27 countries and said that till now, since 1961, climate change has led to favourable environmental conditions for the cultivation of crop. These 27 countries taken up for research account for 86 per cent of the world’s dessert banana production. The researchers concluded that these benefits reaped could now decrease drastically or may totally cease to exist by 2050 if the current rate of climate change continues. Ten countries, including the world’s largest producer and consumer of banana, India, and the fourth largest producer, Brazil, as well as Colombia, Costa Rica, Gautemala, Panama, and the Philippines could face a considerable decline in banana yield. But it is also suggested that some countries may benefit in terms of crop yields. Such countries include Ecuador, the largest exporter of banana, and Honduras, and many African countries. This is because the areas in which banana is cultivated by them have not crossed the temperature optimum. However, global yields will drop drastically. Given the fact that Indian banana farmers rely on it as a cash crop, any reduction in the yield of banana could have significant monetary loss for them. Technological improvements could help in mitigating the climate change-related losses, but it would require greater investment in the future to maintain past year-on-year growth in yields to meet the escalcating demand. Overall, it would be quite a challenging task to adapt bananas to rising temperatures.
Banana is grown throughout the tropics and sub-tropics, and is a key crop for millions of people across the world. It is considered a fruit though it can make up a large amount of calories in the diet. It is among the ten leading crops in the world in terms of area under production and total yield of crop.
So, any fall in its production is bound to have an effect on local and national economies in producing countries. As such, predicting the potential impacts of climate change on banana production systems forms an important study to ensure the positive future outcomes for the crop.
