{"id":6089,"date":"2006-05-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-09T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2006\/05\/09\/2006-05-09-wild-banana-species-in-india-vanishing\/"},"modified":"2006-05-09T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-09T12:00:00","slug":"2006-05-09-wild-banana-species-in-india-vanishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2006\/05\/09\/2006-05-09-wild-banana-species-in-india-vanishing\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Banana Species in India Vanishing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/aponline\/world\/AP-India-Disappearing-Bananas.html\">www.nytimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 7, 2006: Wild banana species are disappearing in India, the world&#8217;s biggest producer of the fruit, due to shrinking forests and rapid urbanization, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has said. India is the world&#8217;s biggest banana grower, with an annual production of 18.52 tons, or more than 20 percent of the total world output of 80.03 tons in 2005, the FAO said in a recent press statement. &#8220;But over-exploitation and the loss of forests as a result of encroachment and logging, slash-and-burn cultivation and urbanization are causing a rapid loss of wild banana species that have existed in India for thousands of years,&#8221; it said. Bananas are the world&#8217;s most exported fruit, and the fourth most important food commodity after rice, wheat and maize, the food agency added.<\/p>\n<p>India, as the largest producer of the fruit, had contributed significantly to the &#8220;global genetic base of bananas,&#8221; said NeBambi Lutaladio, FAO&#8217;s agriculture officer. &#8220;But due to ecosystem destruction, it is probable that many valuable gene sources have now been lost,&#8221; Lutaladio said. &#8220;That could cause serious problems because bananas, particularly commercial varieties, have a narrow genetic pool and are highly vulnerable to pests and diseases,&#8221; he said. Historically, it was Alexander the Great who put bananas on the map in 327 B.C. when, during his invasion of India, he reported eating and enjoying the fruit, the statement said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.nytimes.com NEW DELHI, INDIA, May 7, 2006: Wild banana species are disappearing in India, the world&#8217;s biggest producer of the,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}