A new variety of highly productive banana plants will be distributed to farmers starting next month in a bid to improve banana production and fight disease in one of the priority crops in the country. The move, under the government's seven year programme which will come to an end in …
A SINGLE vaccine can save more lives and money than any other form of medication currently available. This is a universal truth. In the next century, some 15-odd months away, doctors and scientists will strive to develop vaccines far more powerful and effective. Vaccines that will finally put an end …
Standard Fruit Company, Costa Rica's biggest banana producer, has made history by becoming the first food-growing company in the world to receive the "green seal" of the prestigious International Standards Organisation (ISO). The ISO 14001 certificate is given in recognition of exemplary environmental management and worker safety standards. Unfortunately, the …
Banana leaves can now be converted into an energy-rich fuel. Researchers at the Centre of Biochemical Technology (CBT), New Delhi, have devised two methods to generate fuel from banana leaves. V C Kalia, a scientist at CBT's biotechnology division, says that one method called pellitisation or briquetting involves crushing banana …
A new technology for the multiplication of banana plants in 12 commercial varieties has been developed at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. P S Rao, head of the Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology division of BARC says that the plants that are being developed with the new technology, will …
The Caribbean's account for three per cent of world trade in bananas, which are cultivated by small farmers and sold to the European Union (eu). However, not all the profits from the trade of Caribbean bananas go to small farmers. Fyffes, a Dublin-based mediator company dominating the uk market, has …
UNATTRACTIVE mounds of banana peels are a common sight in rural Thailand. A project undertaken recently, aims at converting this waste into energy. Using biogas technology, the Solar Energy and Training Centre (sert) of Naresuan University in Thailand, is using this waste to procure biogas for basic rural energy requirements, …
The World Bank has sponsored an international project aimed at developing disease-free bananas involving researchers from Australia, the US and Belgium. James Dale of Queensland University of Technology heads the operation in Australia. His research ear-lier had led to the discovery of banana bunchy top, a major destructive virus in …
Ghana would have become a banana republic but for the European Union (EU) and its Banana Protocol. The country, for long dependent on cocoa, gold and foreign aid, decided on banana trade in 1988. Fertile soil, ample rain and no history of disease made it the ideal site for production …
The European Court of Justice has rejected Germany's complaint about the European Community's (ec) banana import rules. Germany, the largest importer of bananas, favours the Latin American variety and its grouse is that the ec regime prefers producers in Europe and its former colonies over Latin America. Until recently, Germany …
US scientists have found what makes fruits such as bananas, avocados and tomatoes, vulnerable to fungal diseases that destroy up to 50 per cent of the produce post-harvest. Moshe Flaishman and Pappachan Kolatukuddy from Ohio State University's Biotechnology Center found that the hormone that triggers the ripening of fruit also …
AN OFFER by Latin American banana growers for a dialogue has been eagerly accepted by their Caribbean rivals and discussions scheduled in St Lucia hopefully will dampen the dispute between them, triggered by banana import quotas fixed recently by the European Community (EC). The cause of acrimony between the two …
CARIBBEAN banana producers have challenged the review to be undertaken by a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) panel to examine European Community restrictions imposed on the fruit's import from Latin America. The review was proposed by Latin American countries, whose bananas are cheaper, and seeks to do away …
HONDURAN scientists have come up with an ecologically friendly banana and named it Goldfinger. They maintain their banana is hardier than the more common varieties and immune to black sigatoka, one of the two major fungal diseases that attack banana crops. "It (Goldfinger) could just be the saviour of our …
AS THE world's biggest per capita consumers of bananas, the Germans are understandably angered by an European Community (EC) proposal to restrict imports of the fruit from Latin America. The EC proposal, which is to come into effect July 1, would tax banana imports from Latin America at the rate …
