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Article: AGRICULTURE-BRAZIL: BANANA GROWERS BATTLE A DEADLY NEW FUNGUS
- Article from:
- Inter Press Service English News Wire
- Article date:
- February 28, 2003
- Author:
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 27 (IPS) -- Brazil, the world's
fourth-largest producer of bananas after India, Uganda and Ecuador,
has been fighting for years against two of the fruit's main
enemies, Panama disease and yellow sigatoka, with fungicides and
the increasing resistance of the banana trees themselves.
But the newest and worst threat is black sigatoka, which crossed
the northern Amazon border just five years ago. Now there is great
fear that the fungus will attack south-central Brazil, the region
of greatest production.
It is there that varieties of the Cavendish banana are grown,
the most exported banana in the world -- and also the most
vulnerable to black sigatoka.
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