Published12 minutes ago
Bananas are set to get more expensive as climate change hits a much-loved fruit, one of the world’s top experts from the industry tells BBC News.
Pascal Liu, senior economist at the World Banana Forum, says climate impacts pose an “enormous threat” to supply, compounding the impacts of fast-spreading diseases.
The forum meets in Rome on Tuesday to tackle challenges facing the fruit.
Some UK shops have recently experienced banana shortages due to sea storms.
In its natural yellow wrapper, the nutritious and tasty banana is the world’s most exported fruit.
The UK alone imports around 5 billion bananas ever year, with around 90% sold through the major supermarkets.
Last week saw shortages of bananas in several UK supermarkets, which retailers said were down to storms at sea, delaying supplies.
Most consumers won’t have noticed, according to Prof Dan Bebber from the University of Exeter, who has studied efforts to make bananas more sustainable.
“The supply chain fluctuates but the UK is actually quite good at buffering those types of effects,” he told BBC News.
“Mainly, because the ripening centres can accelerate or decelerate the rate at which they ripen the bananas when they arrive, which helps to buffer those types of fluctuations.”
But while banana supplies can cope with short-term weather events like
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