The banana is one of the most popular fruits in this country. But how natural is the yellow plant when it arrives at us after a journey of 8,000 kilometers? According to a research team, there is so much human influence in the banana today that it is more of a “biofact” than a natural product. The interventions range from cultivation and transport to post-treatment.
The banana is one of the most consumed fruits with us at around 15 kilograms per capita per year. Their robust shell, the pleasant sweetness and their filling effect have made them a popular snack in the industrialized nations. To Germany alone, over a million tons of bananas are imported annually – mainly from tropical regions such as Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica, where they are an important economic factor as an export crop.
“Biofact” instead of a natural product
But is the banana that we can buy from us really still a natural product? Scientists working with Linda Hering from the Technical University of Berlin have now got to the bottom of exactly this question. To do this, they examined the Caribbean banana in German supermarkets and wanted to find out to what extent the yellow fruit and its development have now been shaped by people. Your result: The banana you can buy from us today is the result of human activity. It is a technically designed biofact according to the wishes of the human being. “The term biofact is derived from the Latin bios for life and facere for make,” explains Hering. “The banana still has a living, organic part, but the majority of what makes our supermarket and organic-market bananas are made by humans.”
Various factors play a role in this. “The fact that the banana became a biofact is the result of the multiple technical influences that humans exert in many different places,” says Hering. “The place of cultivation, the EU internal market with its regulations, the requirements of logistics and trade shape the banana in terms of its texture and materiality.” The first factor that determines the yellow fruit is the cultivation. Because it is mostly grown in monoculture, the banana has to be very robust, because this type of cultivation is particularly susceptible to pests and diseases such as fungi. The banana must also be resistant enough for long transport and storage.
Shaped according to our requirements
“The bananas offered in Europe grow in Central America and the Caribbean, that is, about 8,000 kilometers from the point of sale, as they cannot be cultivated in Europe – apart from exceptions such as the islands of Madeira and the Canaries,” explains Hering. “So that the perishable fruit can be sold in the supermarkets in Germany and Europe, many requirements have to be met.” For example, the standards of companies and buyer countries specify which variety is best suited for long transport and storage on the plantations is. Example of this are EU regulations such as the regulation that a banana imported into the European Union must be at least 14 centimeters long and at least 2.7 centimeters thick. Such requirements shaped the variety selection so much that today mainly the Cavendish variety is grown on the plantations around the world and in Germany for the most part only this standard variety can be bought.
Then there are the expectations of buyers: many want bananas that cost little, look flawless and are always available. For others it is more important that the plantation workers are paid fairly and that the cultivation is environmentally friendly. “The banana product also has to do justice to this balancing act between the demands placed on a mass product and increasingly individualized wishes,” emphasizes Hering.
Everything is related
In order for the banana to look fresh and flawless after it has been transported, stored and distributed to the supermarkets, a lot of technology and post-treatment of the bananas, which were harvested grass-green, are required: “Since it emits the ripening gas ethylene, the The air in the refrigerated containers was changed and the transport temperature was 13 degrees Celsius, ”says Hering. “This largely prevents ripening during transport. Sensors monitor the parameters. Only when it has arrived at the ripening center and wholesalers or retailers orders a certain amount will the exact amount ordered be gassed by a ripening master – by adding ethylene, ”explains the researcher. The ripening of the banana is thereby stimulated again and it ends up “matured” in the supermarket. According to the research team, these procedures also turn the yellow fruit into a man-made and manipulated product.
“What we were able to work out using the banana is that the spaces – the place of cultivation, logistics as a transit area, and the place of purchase – in which the banana is created interact and are mutually dependent,” Hering sums up. The fact that the banana is perishable has an impact on logistics because it is gassed there. And the ordeal of transport and storage in turn influences the cultivation and the choice of the variety, which has to be as resistant as possible in order to be able to sell it in always the same quantity and quality, according to the research team. This in turn promotes the cultivation of monocultures in the cultivation areas of Central America and the Caribbean, causes biodiversity to decline and, among other things, damages ecosystems.
Source: Technical University of Berlin