“Going Bananas” is the title of a new report by Christian Aid, which purports to demonstrate that banana crops are threatened directly by climate change (droughts, floods, heat, etc) and indirectly (the spread of fungal disease allegedly caused by climate change). Naturally, because it pushes the climate crisis narrative, the Guardian has given it some publicity. Its headlines are just what we might expect: “Climate crisis threatens the banana, the world’s most popular fruit, research shows – Fourth most important food crop in peril as Latin America and Caribbean suffer from slow-onset climate disaster”. The Guardian doesn’t hold back (does it ever?):
Rising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid’s new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World’s Favourite Fruit.
It’s certainly true that the Christian Aid report does seek to create that image (the report’s cover picture shows “Amelia with her daughter Yakelin 4, standing beside their dying banana plant”. Unfortunately, they failed to crop the accompanying photograph, which seems to show a lot of healthy-looking banana plants behind them). However, a detailed read of the report doesn’t really justify the hyperbole. Real world data undermine it. The Christian Aid report produces four “case studies”, focusing on different countries.
India
We are given a selective picture of climate change:
But this Indian staple is under threat from climate impacts in the nearer term, with extreme weather events, and the longer term through increasing temperatures and changes to the monsoon season increasingly impacting the country. In India’s central belt, including banana-exporting Maharashtra, extreme rainfall events have increased threefold since around 1950, but with an overall decline in annual rainfall.
The problem is, they don’t adduce any evidence of this alleged climate change having reduced the annual banana yield. The best they can manage is this:
One study warned that banana yield reductions could be in decline by 2050 unless adaptive action is taken to help prepare growers for the coming changes. [My emphasis].
The reality is that banana yields in India have grown at an extraordinary rate, and are continuing to do just fine. Here’s a graph from Our World in Data:
Costa Rica
The report treats us to a story of ecological degredation thanks to the allegedly environmentally-unfriendly practices of big banana-growing companies, but there’s nothing to suggest that climate change is adversely affecting yields. The best they can manage here is this:
Costa Rica is vulnerable to climate impacts…Costa Rica’s banana production is expected to be among the most negatively affected by climate change of banana producers in Latin America and the Caribbean. [My emphasis].
Current reality is rather different from the picture painted by the report. Here’s the graph from Our World in Data again:
Guatemala
Christian Aid’s main point seems to be the way that multi-national companies are behaving and the ongoing poverty of the Guatemalan population. I have no problem with them drawing attention to that. They do find a couple of people who complain that banana crops are dying, but they give us no statistics, and the best they can do is this:
Heavy economic reliance on banana exports is potentially hazardous in a country that ranks 5th of countries within highest economic risk exposure to three or more climate hazards: fully 83.3% of GDP generating regions are in at-risk areas, and the country is also at notable climate change impacts risks, being in the top five countries most affected by extreme weather events, including floods and hurricanes. Guatemala is vulnerable to both low frequency high risk events, but also high frequency lower impacts risks.
Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can only continue to adversely impact Guatemala and increasing uncertainties about growing conditions that will impact the 27% of workers employed in agriculture, including bananas.
The problem is that they don’t produce any data to support the suggestion that climate change is adversely affecting banana crops in Guatemala now. Our World in Data shows a slight fall-off in the two years to 2023, but the graph basically shows massive growth in banana crops from its start date in 1961:
Tanzania
Again, we are treated to a commentary on Tanzania’s poverty, and that is well within Christian Aid’s remit. However, the best they can do with regard to climate change and bananas is this:
Tanzania’s agricultural sector is vulnerable to climate change impacts, which include increased seasonal variation in rainfall and temperatures, as well as droughts and floods. Since Tanzania’s population has increased rapidly, the number of people living below the national poverty line has been increasing, and this lack of economic resilience makes these people even more vulnerable to climate change impacts.
Meanwhile, the graph from Our World in Data would suggest that there isn’t a problem:
For the sake of completeness, here’s the graph for banana production globally:
Conclusion
Christian Aid has gone bananas. The Guardian went bananas a long time ago.
Climate Scepticism 
Some of those time lines have a very distinct banana shape about them – not quite hockey stick though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My thanks to Jit for inserting the graphs, a task that was beyond me! As I said to him at the time, without the graphs the nonsense that is contained in the Christian Aid report and the Guardian article on it wouldn’t be evident quite so graphically…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Almost all our commercial bananas are grown from a single ‘cloned’ variety (the ‘Cavendish’), which leaves them vulnerable to disease (if one plant suffers from it, they are all potentially vulnerable). This is often used in the traditional “OMG we’ll have no bananas!!!” hyperbole we associate with climate warriors, but in reality there are plenty of other varieties grown in the world (some of them commercially). So no need to panic (phew!)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Quentin – think we grow those Cavendish variety in the Isle of Man, a man called Mark told me so.
LikeLike
The report states
The Cavendish banana was developed in the early 1830s at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire by the then head gardener Sir Joseph Paxton. Paxton later designed a large greenhouse for the gardens. He won the knighthood for later designing the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851.
The report also notes that the global export market is dominated by four major companies. My contention is that if a mere gardener, with no experience of tropical climates, could develop a variety of banana using the primitive methods in his spare time nearly 200 years ago, surely there would be market incentives to develop new varieties in this century? Or maybe the disease problem is far from sufficient to create the incentives?
LikeLiked by 3 people
A quick search reveals that there are banana research institutes all over the world. Even New Zealand, not a notoriously tropical country, is funding research on bananas.
Those labs are certain to have some varieties kept ready for a calamitous issue with the Cavendish variety.
The climate change issue is always going to be BS when it refers to a tropical plant. The tropics are not predicted to change much, and developing a tropical plant for an extra degree in warmth is not going to be difficult.
The “they are all clones” is also not true. There are plenty of different Cavendish cultivars. It’s not like every Cavendish banana grown in a clone of every other Cavendish banana.
(Quite a lot of crops are clones: Granny Smith apples, many wine varieties, kiwifruit etc. Bananas are not exceptional in that regard.)
LikeLiked by 3 people
On Page 8 of the Christian Aid Banana report is the following statement.
As this statement has no geographical limitations, I assume this is a global statement
Footnote 15 is to https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data. That is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations data.
Mark Hodgson uses from Our World in Data, who note “Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data”. Maybe this major data processing included changing a decline into an increase? I downloaded and charted the two data sets for bananas – “Bananas” and “Plantains and cooking bananas”. From 1990 the data shows continuous increases for both sets of data.
Note that the UN FAO has 1990 Bananas production of 45.14 mt and 2023 production of 123.95 mt. Our World in Data has 49.94 and 139.28. So both data sets flatly contradict Christian Aid’s claim.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks all for the additional information and statistics. This is why I was moved to dash this article off. Christian Aid is perfectly entitled to draw attention to the poverty and problems of the inhabitants of the nations highlighted in its case studies. However, I don’t believe it is within its remit to scaremonger about climate change, especially when it uses dubious claims and ignores the real world data to spread its disinformation. It knows that when it produces a “report” (however fatuous) the usual suspects, like the Guardian, will big it up and exaggerate what is already a misleading piece of work. This is not how responsible charities should behave. This is not how a proper newspaper should behave . In my opinion.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A predicted severe shortage of banana skins due to climate change will mean that charities, NGOs and the Guardian will find it much harder to slip on them. However, a meaningful trend is not yet evident.
LikeLiked by 4 people
But of course the slippery slope of climate change remains an ever present danger.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There can be many reasons why a banana shortage might or might not happen. Climate change is very low down the list, if it’s on the list at all:
“Panama declares emergency over banana region unrest”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cql0r430qglo
Panama has declared an emergency in its main banana-producing region, after shops were looted and buildings vandalised in ongoing protests over a pension reform….
LikeLiked by 1 person