The world’s bananas are in danger. A volcanic island may shield them.

Pushing again flaps of yellowing banana leaves, Moisés Pulido trudges by a layer of dusty soil overlaying his plantation on the coast of La Palma. Below the blinding solar, batches of bananas are nearly seen beneath the treetops, nestled collectively in lime-green bunches.

In late 2021, when the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on the western fringe of this island within the Atlantic Ocean, burying 300 hectares (about 740 acres) of banana timber in ash and destroying 200 extra, farmers like Mr. Pulido couldn’t think about the volcano was doing them any favors.

However the Cumbre Vieja eruption might really maintain among the solutions to retaining bananas viable sooner or later, not simply right here however elsewhere.

A fungus behind the situation referred to as Fusarium wilt – or Panama illness – is threatening bananas world wide. Some say the fungus, which blocks the move of water and vitamins to the plant by its roots, might trigger the favored Cavendish banana to go extinct.

However not like in tropical areas similar to components of India and China, the place a lot of the world’s bananas are produced, the subtropical local weather of the Canary Islands – and La Palma’s western coast, specifically – has offered a path of resistance to the wilt.

Certainly, the volcanic ash that farmers as soon as lamented after Cumbre Vieja’s eruption accommodates important vitamins that shield the plant – and might be a key to bananas’ survival.

“Tropical crops, similar to bananas, develop extra slowly and are much less productive [here] than in tropical locations,” says Antonio Marrero, affiliate professor of agricultural and environmental engineering on the College of La Laguna in San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain. “However, in trade, most of the ailments of tropical locations are absent within the Canary Islands.”

The volcano’s present

This isn’t the primary time banana farming has been beneath existential menace from Panama illness. Within the Nineteen Fifties, banana wilt swept by plantations of the then-dominant Gros Michel banana, driving the variability almost to extinction.

The market quickly turned to the Cavendish banana attributable to its resistance to the wilt. However new variants of the fungus have emerged, some simply as probably threatening to the Cavendish as the unique wilt was to the Gros Michel. Although the fungus has been present in some high-altitude, humid areas of the Canary Islands, that variant is just not essentially the most damaging kind.

When farmers discover wilt, they use commonsense measures, similar to scooping out infested soil. However post-volcano, on what farmers like Mr. Pulido name “virgin soil,” it will be laborious for the fungus to outlive.

“Each time there’s a lava move, time resets to zero,” says Jesús S. Notario del Pino, a professor of soil science and geology on the College of La Laguna. The lifetime of the banana crops “begins once more.”

A part of that logic is apparent. However the fungus is ready to reside for 20 years beneath the soil. And a lot of the world’s bananas – La Palma’s included – are monocrops. This implies they’re farmed on large, devoted plantations that develop nothing else. And all of the bananas are genetic copies of one another, which makes them simple to provide however susceptible to pathogens. When the wilt arrives, it might probably unfold viciously.

Not solely do volcanic eruptions kill the fungus, however volcanic ash from the Cumbre Vieja eruption additionally replenished the soil with vitamins like iron and zinc, and diminished the incidence of banana wilt, based on Dr. Marrero. Volcanic soil can be wealthy in potassium, which bananas rely closely on to develop.

Nonetheless like most different crops, bananas can’t be grown straight on volcanic soil. It takes a long time for the weathering course of to interrupt down hardened lava into fertile earth. As an alternative, native farmers must crush the lava finely and use it as a substrate earlier than pouring recent natural matter from different areas excessive – a apply they’ve been doing for over a century.

“In any other case,” says Mr. Notario del Pino, “they simply have to attend.”

The dangers of monocropping

Farmers like Fran Garlaz say that even with the Canary Islands’ resistant soil and local weather, the potential dangers that include monocropping are larger than anyone illness.

At Ecofinca Platanológico, an natural farm within the coastal city of Puerto Naos, Mr. Garlaz teaches guests about the advantages of biodiversity. At one finish of the location, he grows bananas. The opposite, a miniature jungle of hanging vines and plush flora, is devoted to experimentation. Round 200 crops develop right here.

“Biodiversity is key,” says Mr. Garlaz, pulling a foot-long knife from a case at his hip and taking a quarter-sized clipping from the bottom of a banana tree. As soon as banana timber bear fruit, they die. By planting the clipping subsequent to an current tree, a brand new one will develop, he says. “Monocropping is just not logical or sustainable.”

However Mr. Garlaz is an outlier. Regardless of the efforts of small-scale farmers to diversify crops, nearly half of La Palma’s cultivated land is roofed in banana plantations.

Nonetheless, even when the Cumbre Vieja volcano worn out almost 40% of La Palma’s banana manufacturing and the specter of the wilt isn’t out of view, farmers right here say monocropping isn’t some extent of debate. On La Palma, banana farming offers 10,000 jobs for the island’s 85,000 residents. Because the volcanic eruption, most farmers listed below are simply attempting to get again on their toes.

Mr. Pulido says he at all times deliberate to rebuild the farm he misplaced in 2021. Within the coming days, employees from his native cooperative plan to chop down the primary batch of bananas that has grown since Cumbre Vieja destroyed his farm. He says neither volcano nor fungus will get in his means.

“I by no means thought of stopping,” says Mr. Pulido. “That is for our kids, but in addition in honor of our mother and father and grandparents. It’s a matter of private satisfaction.”

Editor’s observe: The story, which was initially revealed on March. 28, 2025, was up to date to make clear how a lot land on La Palma is devoted to banana plantations.