Stella Tse:      Good to know !

Harvesting Bananas in Costa Rica

www.youtube.com/embed/_l7sak6Vlq8?rel=0

Bob Choi:       Yeah... but this puts a needle to my fantasy bubble... in which each banana was hand picked, cleaned and washed and caressed and packed individually by well-tanned, voluptuous, innocent virgins of the tropical variety wearing nothing except long shiny black hair. Now u know why banana is my favorite fruit!

Stella Tse:      Nothing short of what I expect of you.

Peter Wu:       Thank you so much for the fascinating banana harvesting video. Like Bob, banana is my favourite fruit by far, along with thousands of my countrymen. I eat an average of two a day and I never get sick of it. Like avocadoes, it keeps me ‘full’. Yes, I am eating a banana as I am writing this!

Until I watch the video, I had no idea it only takes about 13 weeks for the bananas to be ready for harvesting. That’s very fast growing.

It’s also interesting they use water extensively in processing bananas in the assembly-line, exactly as that used for processing apples, one of Kiwiland’s main crops.

Water apparently minimises bruising to the fruits and also cleans the superficial dirt.

One worrying thing about bananas is the lack of bio-diversity, by self-selection. Our over-dependence on one type of banana (Cavendish, which looks nice, is fast growing and is delicious) means they are prone to attack by one type of disease. At one stage, 40%(?) of the world’s banana crops are dying. I am unsure if they have found a cure for it now.

A couple of months ago, a shipment of bananas from the Philippines did not arrive in time as the ship broke down en route. The news caused a spike in banana price by about 30%.

Luckily it didn’t last for long. It shows you how much Kiwis consume bananas.