ok this was really bothering me!! I love having a banana in my cereal every morning if I remember to eat breakfast. So I looked it up.
Claim: Bananas will be extinct within ten years.
Status: False.
Bananas aren't about to be swept from the face of the earth by a deadly pestilence poised to wipe them out. There are about 300 varieties of the fruit, and the current fear applies to only one of them, the Cavendish. Granted, the Cavendish is our banana of choice, but it isn't the only banana out there. Even if the Cavendish were lost to us, we would still not be singing "Yes, We Have No Bananas."
The Cavendish, the banana American consumers are most familiar with, is currently threatened in some Asian countries by a new strain of fusarium wilt known as Panama Disease or Race 4. This soil-borne fungus attacks roots and cannot be controlled by fungicides. If Race 4 were to reach Cavendish plants in large-scale commercial plantations, it could have a devastating impact on the species.
