Economics

Deadly Banana Fungus Puts World’s Top Exporter on High Alert

A worker wearing protective gear trims banana bunches at a plantation in Milagro, Ecuador.

Photographer: Vicente Gaibor/Bloomberg

Ecuador, the world’s biggest banana exporter, is on high alert for its vital crop as neighboring Peru grapples with an outbreak of a fungus deadly to the tropical fruit.

“We’ve reinforced practically everything,” Agriculture Minister Xavier Lazo said in an interview, after confirming with Peru’s government of an outbreak of the Fusarium TR4 fungus, which causes the devastating banana wilt, near its southern border with Peru.

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Deadly Banana Fungus Puts World’s Top Exporter on High Alert