Gone bananas

The differences between conventional and organic bananas

By Kim Carlson

February 27, 2008

Umbra Fisk, the inimitable advice columnist at Grist, recently peeled back the differences between organic and conventionally grown bananas when a curious reader asked why organic bananas seemed smaller and greener than their conventional kin:

When a conventional plant receives synthetic substances targeted at maximum fruit production, and a farmer can apply pesticides whenever a sickly plant (fed on little of substance) starts to lag, the fruit can get quite large. Organic farmers have to pay a bit more attention to the health of the whole farm, the whole plant, and can’t just push plants to the max. As a result the fruit is smaller. I’m not claiming to know much about banana production, but I have seen this effect with other produce. So I think organic bananas may be smaller than conventional bananas because — well, probably because organic banana plants are healthier. Those gigantic bananas to which we are accustomed are just plain old weird.

There’s a lot most of us could learn about this long yellow (or short red) fruit that we take for granted — whether organically or conventionally grown — even though bananas aren’t cultivated much in the continental United States. Wikipedia is a good starting place to learn more, but you might also join us in checking out Banana, a new book on the topic.