Global banana industry faces mounting threat from fast-spreading crop diseases

GLOBAL – Fresh Del Monte Produce chairman and CEO Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh has raised new concerns about the growing disease crisis threatening banana production in Latin America.

Speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, he said the situation has worsened since his earlier warning in July.

Abu-Ghazaleh said the spread of Fusarium Wilt Tropical Race 4 (TR4) had now reached Ecuador, one of the world’s largest banana producers. He described it as “a highly contagious, soil-borne disease with no cure, and it is already destabilising the region.”

The CEO noted that TR4 had already been detected in Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, and its arrival in Ecuador marked a serious escalation for the region’s banana industry. “In Peru, where TR4 was first detected in 2021, the impact is noticeable in the Piura region, the country’s leading producer of organic bananas,” he said.

He added that a recent study revealed “45 per cent of farms are already infected, and about 10 per cent have been completely eradicated.” These infections are now straining smallholder farmers who were already struggling with thin profit margins and rising production costs.

At the same time, Black Sigatoka, another fast-spreading fungal disease, is worsening the crisis. Abu-Ghazaleh explained that farmers are spending more each year on control measures, yet the results are becoming less effective.

“Growers are taking every possible measure to control these diseases, but each year these efforts are becoming more demanding as the situation further deteriorates,” he said.

Rising costs and declining yields

Costa Rica has become one of the hardest-hit countries, showing a 22 per cent drop in banana production this year. “As of August 2025, production in the industry has declined 22 per cent year-over-year, which is roughly 18 million boxes lost, with most of that loss stemming directly from Black Sigatoka,” Abu-Ghazaleh said.

He added that for a country long recognised for its agricultural efficiency, this was “a significant and concerning decline, one that inevitably drives costs higher across the industry.”

Fresh Del Monte has been investing in research on TR4-resistant banana varieties to support long-term resilience, but Abu-Ghazaleh said progress takes time. “We’re advancing work on TR4-resistant banana varieties, an essential step toward long-term resilience, but solutions of this scale take time.”

Abu-Ghazaleh urged all players in the supply chain to work together. “Sustaining this category over the long term will require closer alignment across the value chain, ensuring that pressures in the fields are understood, and shared, throughout the supply chain,” he said. “The farmer can no longer absorb these rising costs.”

He reminded listeners that bananas might seem ordinary, but they depend on one of the most complex supply networks in agriculture. “It’s easy to take the banana for granted, simple, familiar, always there. But behind that simplicity lies one of agriculture’s most coordinated and collaborative supply chains.”

“Protecting it is our shared responsibility, and if we don’t act collectively to support growers and stabilise this supply chain, we risk seeing this fruit, and the livelihoods behind it, disappear before our eyes,” he warned. “That reality weighs heavily on me and drives much of our focus today.”

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