August 5, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

The world loves bananas. However, the banana as we know it is threatened with extinction by Fusarium TR4 – a soil-borne, pathogenic fungus that is decimating banana plantations on a global scale. 

First identified in the 1990s in Taiwan, and after years of battling the fungus across the Eastern Hemisphere, it has since made its way into the Americas last summer, when it was discovered along the coastal region of Colombia – prompting a national state of emergency, amid fears that it will spread across South America.

“Once you see it, it is too late, and it has likely already spread outside that zone without recognition,” Gert Kema, professor of Tropical Phytopathology at Wageningen University where the soil samples from Colombia were analyzed and the presence of TR4 confirmed, told National Geographic. 

Stepping up to save the $25 billion banana industry is Elo Life Systems – a food and agriculture company with a mission to create novel products that improve the nutrition, and enhance the diversity of the global food supply. 

Elo has announced a strategic partnership with Dole Food Company, one of the largest producers of fresh fruit and vegetables in the world, with the goal of developing multiple banana varieties, including the Cavendish, that are resistant to Fusarium wilt. 

“Spread of Fusarium wilt would not only have devastating consequences to the banana industry, but also have a significant economic impact on farmers in the affected regions whose livelihoods depend on exports of the Cavendish banana,” said Fayaz Khazi, Ph.D., CEO, Elo Life Systems. 

Since the discovery of TR4 in Colombia, Dole has intensified its efforts to combat the fungus – announcing an immediate three-year containment program in 2019 to ensure biocontrol measures were being taken at every Dole banana farm and those of its suppliers.

The company has also begun working closely with global  research institutions, and, more recently, has begun forging relationships with leading biotechnology companies such as Elo in the search to develop TR4 resistant bananas.

Through this partnership, Elo will assume the responsibility of the discovery, evaluation, and development of multiple approaches for combating and achieving resistance to Fusarium wilt; while Dole will conduct field evaluations, and will oversee the commercialization of the resulting Cavendish varieties that are resistant to Fusarium TR4.

As part of its work toward achieving this shared goal, Elo noted that it will employ its suite of proprietary tools that includes its cutting-edge knowledge mining platform, gene discovery platform, trait validation workflows, and end-to-end expertise in translational agriculture – which will be combined with its proprietary homing endonuclease-based genome editing platform for the development of potential clonally propagated banana varieties that are resistant to TR4.

“To date, chemical and cultural approaches to control this disease have been unsuccessful,” said Dr. Khazi. “We’re excited to work with Dole, which shares Elo’s vision to improve the security and sustainability of the global food supply, to address this critical need and help develop new varieties that leverage natural resistance within several relatives of the Cavendish banana.”

Throughout the process Dole will fully fund the research and development being carried out by Elo, and will pay royalties on the commercialized product.

“Bananas are not only the most popular fruit in the United States, but together with plantains, they are a staple food on which much of the world depends for sustenance,” said Patricio Gutiérrez, director of innovation R&D, Dole Tropical Products. “Our investment in this strategic project reflects our aspiration to improve a critically important food crop while helping farmers meet the continuous challenges to produce this food for the planet.”

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.