Do not mature, do not rot and get fresh for noon, peeled. A new genetically modified banana promises to help reduce food waste around the world.
Banana as we know it “is asexual“, Says Gilad Gershon, executive director of Tropic, a biotechnology company that works against food waste -” a great and even very bad contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, “he says to.
The CEO referred to the fact that the banana tree does not produce viable seeds for reproduction. Bananas reproduce through the vegetative propagationforming underground rhizomes that become new plants, which are genetically identical to the “mother.”
“There is no real reproduction in bananas. We are eating today the same bananas our grandparents ate in the 1950s“, He explains:” The only real opportunity we have to adjust banana to face the challenges that industry is facing is through the edition of genes. ” And that is what your company is doing.
Tropic’s new genetically modified banana stays fresh more time and does not rot During harvesting and transportation as with many other fruits or even other bananas varieties. The company’s solution to resolve banana’s “asexuality” is to silence a gene that produces Polifol oxidasean enzyme responsible for the darkening effect of the fruit.
“We use genetic editing to increase performance, prolong the expiration date and improve natural resistance to diseases, which means much more bananas, with much less agricultural, less chemical, fewer food waste, less carbon emissions and fewer costs for producers,” reads in the company, which also works in the genetic modification of coffee and rice.
“We estimate that our non -mature bananas can reduce food waste and equivalent CO2 emissions along the supply chain in More than 25%“,“ Could contribute to an annual reduction in CO2 emissions from more than 9 million tons in the banana export market alone. ”
“We extend the expiration date of bananas, reducing darkening and slowing the maturity to reduce global food waste,” says Tropic, which promises healthier and more naturally resistant bananas Like Black Sigatoka-the most destructive disease of banana culture, which costs so much to world farmers-and Pamamá mallain, a disease that affects all the world-producing regions around the world and destroys whole plantations at an alarming rhythm.
“Bananas are the fourth largest culture worldwide, but also a culture in which perishable is very high. Some estimates say 50% of cultivated bananas are never consumed, ”the CEO also tolds the British newspaper. Worldwide, about 33% of products are lying off before they can be consumed.
Banana that does not darkening has already been approved for sale in countries such as Philippines, Colombia, Honduras, the US and Canada.
Tomás Guimarães, Zap //
