The fungus named Tropical Race 4, TR4, is a variant of the so-called Panama disease that has long tormented banana growers.

TR4 was discovered in Taiwan in the early 1990s and the fungal infestation has since knocked out several harvests in Southeast Asia and Australia. During the 2010s, TR4 also reached the Middle East and Africa.

"If it's spread a lot it's bad"

So far, Central and South America has been spared the disease, but now it has been confirmed in Colombia - one of the world's largest exporters of bananas. Signs of the infection were discovered in June and the country's agricultural authority, ICA, has quarantined a 170 hectare area, writes the journal Science.

Analyzes have now confirmed that this is TR4 and the government has announced a national emergency, reports National Geographic.

"The problem is that when it has emerged so that you can discover it, it has probably spread quite a lot," says Jonathan Yuen, professor emeritus of plant pathology at SLU.

- And if it has spread a lot then it is bad. When I say it is bad it means that in the future we will not see the bananas we are used to.

Old banana variety was wiped out

Bananas are not only part of daily food in much of the world, but are also an important financial resource for several Latin American countries. The region has four of the five largest producers for the export market and Colombia's neighboring Ecuador is the world's largest exporter of bananas, according to National Geographic.

And this is not the first time Panama's disease is threatening Latin America's banana population.

An earlier variant, called Race 1, knocked out the then biggest banana variety, Gros Michel, in the 50s. The banana was replaced by the Cavendish variety that was resistant to R1. Cavendish is the course you see most often on the store shelves today.

There is no cure

At present, there is no working cure for TR4 and according to Jonathan Yuen the risk is that the bananas we are now used to can be completely eliminated in the future.

- If the fungus spreads properly, and there is no indication that it can not do, then you have to give up this cultivation. The problem is that now there is no other resistant variety you can replace Cavendish with.

- There is a risk that what we will know as a track will be completely different in the future.