ABSTRACT
The future and sustainability of banana cultivation has been closely associated with intensive pesticide use in large-scale, monoculture production systems and its impact on human health and the environment. The intensive use of pesticides in export-oriented production has been central to campaigns by civil society. Diseases are serious constraints for sustainable banana cultivation for export as well as in diverse landscapes dominated by smallholders producing banana and plantain for local diets. Of particular concern is the re-emergence and global spread of the Panama disease, a new and virulent strain of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense, the so-called Tropical Race (TR) 4 – which affects different production systems.
