Banana prices to go up as temperatures rise, says expert | Hacker News Reader

Banana prices to go up as temperatures rise, says expert

bbc.com

47 pointsBrajeshwar53 comments

Cocoa is having an even more dramatic rise in price[0], blasting through record highs right now, likewise related, primarily, to climate change.

0. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/cocoa

That is an insane price spike for cocoa. 239% price increase YoY!

The link you cited references El Niño bringing heavy rains and spreading "black pod disease," neither of which are caused by climate change.

The severity of the rains brought by El Niño is related to climate change, and the rains themselves are the causal reason for the increase in black pod disease.

We've had plenty of El Niño in the past, but no such extreme spikes.

Once again, it seems that people who don't want to see climate change will not see it no matter how striking the evidence.

My understanding is the frequency and intensity of El Nino is directly related to climate change.

Arguing lack of one-to-one causation is really tone-deaf if you've been following the climate change conversation for any time now.

Climate change is affected by multiple factors...

Climate change is everything and nothing, it's so insidious that you can't predict it accurately nor measure it at a short time-scale yet it uniquely explains recent and regular weather events and spikes in commodity prices. Might as well blame everything on witches.

False dichotomy, appeal to ridicule, and generalizations about climate change science in two sentences is impressive.

Honestly one of the worst arguments I've read this year. Might be the witches talking though.

My post has none of that, and your lazy clichés were completely off base in your previous post as well, though I didn't point that out in my own reply to give you the benefit of the doubt and avoid making it personal. It seems you feel differently, as you've said nothing of substance and persist with lazy smearing attempts instead of engaging in faithful discussion. Based on past experience with that attitude, I don't think you understand much of anything about climate.

Bananas are amazingly cheap. At least here in the US Midwest. Even the organic ones. They’re my reference for “cheap food”.

Agree, I am always blown away when I ring up a big cluster of bananas and it's like $2!

In places like in the south of India they’re almost always free. The banana trees grow like weeds and in many cases self propagate and come back on their own every year.

Are they all the same variety? Or are they hybrid?

They are much smaller, about half the size of the Chiquita ones and slightly less sweet and harder. They are called Elaichi bananas.

I've lived all my life in South India and I've never seen free bananas. The Robusta Cavendish bananas are inexpensive and ubiquitous though.

Depends on if you own any land and most people in rural areas do.

It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? 10 dollars?

There is always money in the banana stand.

Bet bananas break $10 in my lifetime.

Inflation is bananas: after 20 years, Trader Joe’s raises the fruit’s price by four cents *1

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/mar/27/trader-joes-rai...

> We only change our prices when our costs change, and after holding our price for bananas at 19 cents each for more than two decades, we’ve now reached a point where this change is necessary,

This seems unlikely. 19c is an extremely suspicious price, and costs exactly counterbalancing inflation for 20years, and then jumping 20% in one year is even more suspicious.

Looks like the jump happened in 2022: https://ycharts.com/indicators/central_america_and_ecuador_b...

In fact, trader joe's was selling bananas at almost the same price as everyone else. Costco already was selling at a higher price. I noticed that at $0.59 per pound price which is usually the price at walmart or other places, it works almost to trader joe's $0.19 per banana. I am seeing the prices are going up everywhere, even my friendly neighborhood grocery store.

Isn't Panama Disease and inflation a greater driver than temperature?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bm5NWCMlPo

I live in one of the most expensive cities in the country and just bought a full bunch of bananas (4-6 of them) for I think 80 cents. I'm surprised the price hasn't gone up yet, especially looking at how expensive every other fruit has become.

The World Food Program is ringing the bell at increasing risk of food shortage.

There is a lack of rice production due to drought and demands

France consider that food supply will be a military challenge in some years (the two other points are Russia, and islamic threat).

There is sever drought in Amazonia and the whole south america.

India stopped to export rice (or weat? I don't remember), due to aome China agression pretext.

so yes, banana price rise and the other food goods will follow.

rice: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/06/rice-climate-crisis-f...

france: https://www.defense.gouv.fr/ministere/politique-defense/stra...

wfp: https://www.wfp.org/

amazonia:https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...

> There is a lack of rice production due to drought and demands

What is this even supposed to mean? Rice production continues to grow year on year and the prices are not anywhere as volatile as wheat.

Rice production does not really increase since 2015: https://www.statista.com/statistics/256005/global-rice-suppl...

and while you're correct for the price, it did increased by ~32% in 2023 compared to previous years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/255954/price-indices-for...

> Producers are suffering from rising costs of energy and labour

This is propaganda.

Labor is the producers. Paying them more is good for them, not suffering. People

rising cost -> most expansive -> consumers turn to different fruits

What’s cheaper than bananas? Like they are cheaper than potatoes for gods sake. Apples the next cheapest “fruit” are like 2$ a lb at the lowest

It's all relative, what's cheap for you can be expansive for someone else, including the producer

Perhaps bananas will turn out to be a Giffen good.

According to modern economics, labor is one of the factors of production, the others being land, capital, and entrepreneurship.

I mean, it's one banana. What could it cost? 10 dollars?

Closer to reality every day!

I gather coffee and wine is also under threat.

Desperate times ahead boys

"Yes, we have no bananas" went public domain this year so perhaps it was fait accompli.

Can't we just grow them in the US somewhere? We can talk to people in space but we can't grow some damn naners wtf

Banana is a tropical fruit, and growing in the US won't make anything cheaper.

with a greenhouse sure

You can grow bananas in greenhouses in the US, and some people do. But if you tried to do it commercially you'd probably have to sell them for more than $10.

They grow just fine at outside my house, but I like the monstera fruit better.

We grow millions of pounds of bananas in the US.

https://hdoa.hawaii.gov/add/files/2020/07/Banana-Stats-2019_...

Ooh, scary.

Bananas have been too cheap for decades.

I agree with that, I live in a country very very far away from where bananas are produced and it is among the cheapest fruits you can find, very weird when you think about it

Distance is not the only parameter in the cost function of a food.

Weight, reliability, predictability, spoil-ability, ease of growing, etc. all lend themselves to bananas being an “easy” food item, hence the supply is sufficient to keep prices low.

Look at the positive: we'll be able to grow bananas in Europe soon :)

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