In banana plants has the Fusarium TR4 a devastating effect. In Colombia he has already reached the banana plantations on the Caribbean coast.

With fungus-infected bananas in Colombia photo: Thomas Meyer/imago

APARTADÓ taz | The arrival hall of the airport of Apartado in the Northwest of Colombia is paved with posters. On the Assembly line, where the bags arrive, they are placed at the exit and in the toilets they have their place. "Entra limpio y salgo limpio," reads the appeal, which means as much as: "Clean come in and clean going out." Each visitor to a banana plantation to make sure that she or he is introducing no contaminated soil in the plantation.

Other posters explain in English and Spanish, what it's about: to prevent the further spread of the banana fungus, TR4, Colombia Fusarium Raza 4 Tropical called, with all the funds. For the government, the Association of banana producers of Colombia (Augura), the lead Institute, ICA (Colombian Institute for agriculture) and the trade unions together.

Videos were produced to run on all channels and prevent contaminated soil, or spores in the banana plantations be introduced in the Region of Urabá, in. This Region is the main growing region of Colombia. Here, between Apartadó and Turbo, it produced around 85 per cent of the export bananas in Colombia in the value of in the year 2019, approximately 860 million dollars.

none of that will change nothing, and therefore, the government in Bogotá has a call in August last year, the national state of emergency for the Region, and with a package of measures to ensure that on the plantations in the growing regions is a Red alert. Plantation workers, suppliers and transport companies have been trained to put the fungus, which was detected in August on two plantations, a quasi-quarantine. The eight plantations, which was all set up in the Region of La Guajira, a Peninsula in the West of Colombia on the border with Venezuela, a security strip, the banana cracks, perennials, with Dull and style and the area of around 180 hectares, virtually shut down.

measures to stall for time, so Gabriel Jaime Elejalde, Director Regional de Augura in the Region of Urabá. "Today there is no product, which could control this fungus," says Elejalde, which points in the same way as Augura, President of Emerson Aguirre to the fact that the fungus can survive for thirty and fifty years in the ground.

A curse for the banana farmers and a challenge for scientists, because the variety is concerned, which dominated the banana export: Cavendish. Around 95 percent of all internationally traded bananas are the product of this variety, and alternative varieties, there is not, so banana experts such as Gerd, Kema of the Netherlands agricultural University of Wageningen.

The knowledge of the Colombian experts who are with Kema and other experts, in a constant exchange. Seven to eight years it will take, according to Gerd Kema, until his research program contributes to Fear and a new Banana variety is found, which is resistant to TR4-resistant, and the Cavendish variety could replace.

to be able to a Lot of the time, the hope of the Colombian experts with a series of measures to bridge. Mandatory disinfection of equipment is boots, Work or vehicles that enter the plantations, and they leave. "Clean in, clean out", is the country's Watchword against the fungus.

The sits in the earth, penetrates the roots of the Perennial in the Plant, plugged its Nutrient, so that the leaves wither and the Tree eventually breaks and dies. With the phytosanitary measures of the spread of the fungus is to be prevented, which is only realistic when on every plantation will be carried along. How realistic it is, over months and years, the measures to maintain, can hardly judge someone, so Adela Torres from the agricultural Union Sintrainagro in Aparatadó.

The Union, about a third of the 60,000 Planta day workers belong to, is part of the national Alliance against the further spread of TR4. "We fight for the families, the existence of the banana depends," said the trade unionist. According to the Ministry of agriculture in Bogotá, up to 50 million families, because the banana is more than an export product, it is also a staple food in Colombia as a chef and as a fruit a banana.