1960 Israel JEWISH POSTER Judaica BANANA GARDEN Hebrew CHILDREN KKL JNF Kibbutz


1960 Israel JEWISH POSTER Judaica BANANA GARDEN Hebrew CHILDREN KKL JNF Kibbutz

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1960 Israel JEWISH POSTER Judaica BANANA GARDEN Hebrew CHILDREN KKL JNF Kibbutz:
$49.00



DESCRIPTION

Here for sale is a genuine authenticvintage ca 50 years old COLORFUL ZIONIST POSTER illustratedinVIVD COLORS, Which was issued by the JNF ( Jewish National Fund )- KKL ( Keren Kayemet Le\'Israel ) in the late 1950\'s up to the mid1960\'s. The colorful poster depicts a typical israeli KIBBUTZ or aSETTLEMENT SCENERY, Namely aBANANA PLANTATION beinghandledby Israeli BOYS and GIRLS , Dressed with TYPICAL ISRAELI CLOTHES of the 1950\'s . The ISRAELI KIBBBUTZ CHILDREN are picking BANANAS and loading them on a CART with a DONKEY , Being driven by a KIBBUTZ MEMBER. The HebrewTITLE is\"BEMATAEY HABANANOT \" ( In The BANANA PLANTATIONS , Dans Les BANANERAIES , En El PLATAND ) . Written also in English, Frenchand Spanish. Acolorful Printing. The poster SIZEis around 13\" x 19\" . Printed onthinstock.Very goodcondition. Nofolds, Tears, Creases or stains whatsoever (Please look at scan for actual AS IS images ) Posterwill be sent rolled in a special protective rigid sealed tube.

PAYMENTS Only PAYPAL please SHIPPING

Shipp worldwide via registeredairmail is $18 . Handling within 3-5 days after receipt of payment. Duration around 14 days. . Will be sent in a protective sealed packaging.


. The Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: קרן קימת לישראל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael) (abbreviated as JNF, and sometimes KKL) was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine (later British Mandate for Palestine, and subsequently Israel and the Palestinian territories) for Jewish settlement. The JNF is a quasi-governmental, non-profit organization. By 2007, it owned 13% of the total land in Israel.Since its inception, the JNF has planted over 240 million trees in Israel. It has also built 180 dams and reservoirs, developed 250,000 acres (1,000 km2) of land and established more than 1,000 parks. Israel officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Medīnat Yisrā\'el, Arabic: دولة إِسرائيل‎ is a parliamentary democracy in the Middle East, on the south-Eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. In its Basic Laws Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Democratic State; it is the world\'s only Jewish-majority state.On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly recommended the adoption and implementation of the partition plan of Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared \"the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel,\" a state independent upon the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, 15 May 1948.Neighboring Arab armies invaded Palestine on the next day and fought the Israeli forces. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula (between 1967 and 1982), Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. It annexed portions of these territories, including East Jerusalem, but the border with the West Bank is disputed. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace. Israel\'s financial center is Tel Aviv, while Jerusalem is the country\'s most populous city and its capital (although not recognized internationally as such). The population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2013 to be 8,002,300 people, of whom 6,030,100 are Jewish. Arabs form the country\'s second-largest ethnic group with 1,653,900 people (including Druze and Bedouins). The great majority of Israeli Arabs are settled-Muslims, with smaller but significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins and Christians. Other minorities include various ethnic and ethno-religious denominations such as Druze, Maronites, Samaritans, Black Hebrew Israelites, Armenians, Circassians and others. Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The Prime Minister serves as head of government and the Knesset serves as Israel\'s unicameral legislative body. Israel has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. It is a developed country, an OECD member, and its economy, based on the nominal gross domestic product, was the 43rd-largest in the world in 2012. Israel has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia. Cattle (colloquially cows) are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius. Cattle are raised as livestock for meat (beef and veal), as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, and as draft animals (oxen / bullocks) (pulling carts, plows and the like). Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel. In some countries, such as India, cattle are sacred. It is estimated that there are 1.3 billion cattle in the world today.[2] In 2009, cattle became the first livestock animal to have its genome mapped Species of cattle Main article: Bovini Cattle were originally identified as three separate species. These were Bos taurus, the European or \"taurine\" cattle (including similar types from Africa and Asia); Bos indicus, the zebu; and the extinct Bos primigenius, the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle. Recently these three have increasingly been grouped as one species, with Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus and Bos primigenius primigenius as the subspecies.[4] Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other closely related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu (including the sanga cattle breeds, Bos taurus africanus) but also between one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos: yak (called a dzo or \"yattle\"[5]), banteng and gaur. Hybrids (such as the beefalo breed) can also occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, which some authors consider to be in the genus Bos as well.[6] The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example, genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix of taurine cattle, zebu and yak.[7] Cattle cannot successfully be hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo. The aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times its range became restricted to Europe, and the last known individual died in Masovia, Poland, in about 1627.[8] Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed. Word origin Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. It was borrowed from Old French catel, itself from Latin caput, head, and originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals such as chickens — they were sold as part of the land).[9] The word is closely related to \"chattel\" (a unit of personal property) and \"capital\" in the economic sense.[10][11] The term replaced earlier Old English feoh \"cattle, property\" (cf. German: Vieh, Gothic: faihu). The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from Common Indo-European gʷōus (genitive gʷowes) = \"a bovine animal\", compare Persian Gâv, Sanskrit go, Welsh buwch.[citation needed] In older English sources such as the King James Version of the Bible, \"cattle\" refers to livestock, as opposed to \"deer\" which refers to wildlife. \"Wild cattle\" may refer to feral cattle or to undomesticated species of the genus Bos. Today, when used without any other qualifier, the modern meaning of \"cattle\" is usually restricted to domesticated bovines.[citation needed] Terminology In general, the same words are used in different parts of the world but with minor differences in the definitions. The terminology described here contrasts the differences in definition between the United Kingdom and other British influenced parts of world such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and the United States.[12] An intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male is called a bull. A wild, young, unmarked bull is known as a micky in Australia.[13] An unbranded bovine of either sex is called a \"maverick\" in the USA and Canada. An adult female that has had a calf (or two, depending on regional usage) is a cow. A young female before she has had a calf of her own[14] and is under three years of age is called a heifer (pronounced /ˈhɛfər/, \"heffer\").[15] A young female that has had only one calf is occasionally called a first-calf heifer. Young cattle of both sexes are called calves until they are weaned, then weaners until they are a year old in some areas; in other areas, particularly with male beef cattle, they may be known as feeder-calves or simply feeders. After that, they are referred to as yearlings or stirks[16] if between one and two years of age.[17] A castrated male is called a steer in the United States; older steers are often called bullocks in other parts of the world[18] but in North America this term refers to a young bull. Piker bullocks are micky bulls that were caught, castrated and then later lost.[13] In Australia, the term \"Japanese ox\" is used for grain fed steers in the weight range of 500 to 650 kg that are destined for the Japanese meat trade.[19] In North America, draft cattle under four years old are called working steers. Improper or late castration on a bull results in it becoming a coarse steer known as a stag in Australia, Canada and New Zealand.[20] In some countries an incompletely castrated male is known also as a rig. A castrated male (occasionally a female or in some areas a bull) kept for draft purposes is called an ox (plural oxen); \"ox\" may also be used to refer to some carcase products from any adult cattle, such as ox-hide, ox-blood or ox-liver.[15] A springer is a cow or heifer close to calving.[21] In all cattle species, a female that is the twin of a bull usually becomes an infertile partial intersex, and is a freemartin. Neat (horned oxen, from which neatsfoot oil is derived), beef (young ox) and beefing (young animal fit for slaughtering) are obsolete terms, although poll, pollard or polled cattle are still terms in use for naturally hornless animals, or in some areas also for those that have been disbudded. Cattle raised for human consumption are called beef cattle. Within the beef cattle industry in parts of the United States, the older term beef (plural beeves) is still used to refer to an animal of either gender. Some Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and British people use the term beast, especially for single animals when the gender is unknown.[22] Cattle of certain breeds bred specifically for milk production are called milking or dairy cattle.;[12] a cow kept to provide milk for one family may be called a house cow or milker. The adjective applying to cattle in general is usually bovine. The terms \"bull\", \"cow\" and \"calf\" are also used by extension to denote the gender or age of other large animals, including whales, hippopotamuses, camels, elk and elephants See also: List of animal names Singular terminology issue Cattle can only be used in the plural and not in the singular: it is a plurale tantum. Thus one may refer to \"three cattle\" or \"some cattle\", but not \"one cattle\". There is no universally used singular form in modern English of \"cattle\", other than the sex- and age-specific terms such as cow, bull, steer and heifer. Historically, \"ox\" was a non-gender-specific term for adult cattle, but generally this is now used only for draft cattle, especially adult castrated males. The term is also incorporated into the names of other species such as the musk ox and \"grunting ox\" (yak), and is used in some areas to describe certain cattle products such as ox-hide and ox-tail.[23] \"Cow\" is in general use as a singular for the collective \"cattle\", despite the objections by those who insist it to be a female-specific term. Although the phrase \"that cow is a bull\" is absurd from a lexicographic standpoint, the word \"cow\" is easy to use when a singular is needed and the sex is unknown or irrelevant - when \"there is a cow in the road\", for example. Further, any herd of fully mature cattle in or near a pasture is statistically likely to consist mostly of cows, so the term is probably accurate even in the restrictive sense. Other than the few bulls needed for breeding, the vast majority of male cattle are castrated as calves and slaughtered for meat before the age of three years. Thus, in a pastured herd, any calves or herd bulls usually are clearly distinguishable from the cows due to distinctively different sizes and clear anatomical differences. Merriam-Webster, a U.S. dictionary, recognizes the non-sex-specific use of \"cow\" as an alternate definition,[24] whereas Collins, a UK dictionary, does not.[25] Colloquially, more general non-specific terms may denote cattle when a singular form is needed. Australian, New Zealand and British farmers use the term \"beast\" or \"cattle beast\". \"Bovine\" is also used in Britain. The term \"critter\" is common in the western United States and Canada, particularly when referring to young cattle.[26] In some areas of the American South (particularly the Appalachian region), where both dairy and beef cattle are present, an individual animal was once called a \"beef critter\", though that term is becoming archaic. Other terminology Cattle raised for human consumption are called \"beef cattle\". Within the beef cattle industry in parts of the United States, the term \"beef\" (plural \"beeves\") is still used in its archaic sense to refer to an animal of either gender. Cows of certain breeds that are kept for the milk they give are called \"dairy cows\" or \"milking cows\" (formerly \"milch cows\" – \"milch\" was pronounced as \"milk\"). Most young male offspring of dairy cows are sold for veal, and may be referred to as veal calves. The term \"dogies\" is used to describe orphaned calves in the context of ranch work in the American west, as in \"Keep them dogies moving\".[27] In some places, a cow kept to provide milk for one family is called a \"house cow\". Other obsolete terms for cattle include \"neat\" (this use survives in \"neatsfoot oil\", extracted from the feet and legs of cattle), and \"beefing\" (young animal fit for slaughter). An onomatopoeic term for one of the commonest sounds made by cattle is \"moo\", and this sound is also called lowing. There are a number of other sounds made by cattle, including calves bawling, and bulls bellowing. The bullroarer makes a sound similar to a territorial call made by bulls.[citation needed] Anatomy Cattle have one stomach with four compartments. They are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment. The reticulum, the smallest compartment, is known as the \"honeycomb\". Cattle sometimes consume metal objects which are deposited in the reticulum and irritation from the metal objects causes hardware disease. The omasum\'s main function is to absorb water and nutrients from the digestible feed. The omasum is known as the \"many plies\". The abomasum is like the human stomach; this is why it is known as the \"true stomach\" Cattle are ruminants, meaning that they have a digestive system that allows use of otherwise indigestible foods by regurgitating and rechewing them as \"cud\". The cud is then reswallowed and further digested by specialised microorganisms in the rumen. These microbes are primarily responsible for decomposing cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids that cattle use as their primary metabolic fuel. The microbes inside the rumen are also able to synthesize amino acids from non-protein nitrogenous sources, such as urea and ammonia. As these microbes reproduce in the rumen, older generations die and their carcasses continue on through the digestive tract. These carcasses are then partially digested by the cattle, allowing them to gain a high quality protein source. These features allow cattle to thrive on grasses and other vegetation. The gestation period for a cow is nine months. A newborn calf weighs 25 to 45 kilograms (55 to 99 lb). The world record for the heaviest bull was 1,740 kilograms (3,840 lb), a Chianina named Donetto, when he was exhibited at the Arezzo show in 1955.[28] The heaviest steer was eight year old ‘Old Ben’, a Shorthorn/Hereford cross weighing in at 2,140 kilograms (4,720 lb) in 1910.[29] Steers are generally killed before reaching 750 kilograms (1,650 lb). Breeding stock usually live to about 15 years (occasionally as much as 25 years). The oldest recorded cow, Big Bertha, died at the age of 48 in 1993. A common misconception about cattle (particularly bulls) is that they are enraged by the color red (something provocative is often said to be \"like a red Flag to a bull\"). This is incorrect, as cattle are red-green color-blind.[30][31] The myth arose from the use of red capes in the sport of bullfighting; in fact, two different capes are used. The capote is a large, flowing cape that is magenta and yellow. The more famous muleta is the smaller, red cape, used exclusively for the final, fatal segment of the fight. It is not the color of the cape that angers the bull, but rather the movement of the fabric that irritates the bull and incites it to charge. Having two kinds of color receptors in the cone cells in their retinas, cattle are dichromatic, as are most other non-primate land mammals.[32][33] Cattle genome Further information: Bovine genome In the April 24, 2009 edition of the journal Science, it was reported that a team of researchers led by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has mapped the bovine genome.[34] The scientists found that cattle have approximately 22,000 genes, and 80 percent of their genes are shared with humans, and they have approximately 1,000 genes they share with dogs and rodents, but are not found in humans. Using this bovine \"HapMap\", researchers can track the differences between the breeds that affect the quality of meat and milk yields.[35] Domestication and husbandry Cattle occupy a unique role in human history, domesticated since at least the early Neolithic. They are raised for meat (beef cattle), dairy products and hides. They are also used as draft animals and in certain sports. Some consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently one of the earliest forms of theft. Cattle are often raised by allowing herds to graze on the grasses of large tracts of rangeland. Raising cattle in this manner allows the use of land that might be unsuitable for growing crops. The most common interactions with cattle involve daily feeding, cleaning and milking. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations. There are also some cultural differences in working with cattle- the cattle husbandry of Fulani men rests on behavioural techniques, whereas in Europe cattle are controlled primarily by physical means like fences.[36] Breeders use cattle husbandry to reduce M. bovis infection susceptibility by selective breeding and maintaining herd health to avoid concurrent disease.[37] Cattle are farmed for beef, veal, dairy, leather and they are less commonly used for conservation grazing, simply to maintain grassland for wildlife – for example, in Epping Forest, England. They are often used in some of the most wild places for livestock. Depending on the breed, cattle can survive on hill grazing, heaths, marshes, moors and semi desert. Modern cows are more commercial than older breeds and, having become more specialized, are less versatile. For this reason many smaller farmers still favor old breeds, like the dairy breed of cattle Jersey. In Portugal, Spain, Southern France and some Latin American countries, bulls are used in the activity of bullfighting; a similar activity, Jallikattu, is seen in South India; in many other countries this is illegal. Other activities such as bull riding are seen as part of a rodeo, especially in North America. Bull-leaping, a central ritual in Bronze Age Minoan culture (see Bull (mythology)), still exists in southwestern France. In modern times, cattle are also entered into agricultural competitions. These competitions can involve live cattle or cattle carcases in hoof and hook events. In terms of food intake by humans, consumption of cattle is less efficient than of grain or vegetables with regard to land use, and hence cattle grazing consumes more area than such other agricultural production when raised on grains.[38] Nonetheless, cattle and other forms of domesticated animals can sometimes help to use plant resources in areas not easily amenable to other forms of agriculture. Economy Cattle today are the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. The international trade in beef for 2000 was over $30 billion and represented only 23 percent of world beef production. (Clay 2004). The production of milk, which is also made into cheese, butter, yogurt, and other dairy products, is comparable in economic size to beef production and provides an important part of the food supply for many of the world\'s people. Cattle hides, used for leather to make shoes, couches and clothing, are another widespread product. Cattle remain broadly used as draft animals in many developing countries, such as India. Environmental impact A 400-page United Nations report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) states that the livestock sector is \"responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions\".[39] [40] The production of cattle to feed and clothe humans stresses ecosystems around the world,[38] and is assessed to be one of the top three Environmental problems in the world on a local to global scale.[40] The report, entitled Livestock\'s Long Shadow, also surveys the Environmental damage from sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world\'s 1.5 billion cattle are cited as the greatest adverse impact with respect to climate change as well as species extinction. The report concludes that, unless changes are made, the massive damage reckoned to be due to livestock may more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases. One of the cited changes suggests that intensification of the livestock industry may be suggested, since intensification leads to less land for a given level of production.[40] Some microbes respire in the cattle gut by an anaerobic process known as methanogenesis (producing the gas methane). Cattle emit a large volume of methane, 95% of it through eructation or burping, not flatulence.[41] As the carbon in the methane comes from the digestion of vegetation produced by photosynthesis, its release into the air by this process would normally be considered harmless, because there is no net increase in carbon in the atmosphere — it\'s removed as carbon dioxide from the air by photosynthesis and returned to it as methane.[citation needed] Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, having a warming effect 23 to 50 times greater,[42][43] and according to Takahashi and Young \"even a small increase in methane concentration in the atmosphere exerts a potentially significant contribution to global warming\".[43] Further analysis of the methane gas produced by livestock as a contributor to the increase in greenhouse gases is provided by Weart.[44] Research is underway on methods of reducing this source of methane, by the use of dietary supplements, or treatments to reduce the proportion of methanogenetic microbes, perhaps by vaccination.[45][46] In 2010, a diet was proposed to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases by cattle. The diet was conceived by Alexander Hristov of the Pennstate University.[47] Cattle are fed a concentrated high-corn diet which produces rapid weight gain, but this has side effects which include increased acidity in the digestive system. When improperly handled, manure and other byproducts of concentrated agriculture also have Environmental consequences.[48] Grazing by cattle at low intensities can create a favourable Environment for native herbs and forbs; however, in most world regions cattle are reducing biodiversity due to overgrazing driven by food demands by an expanding human population.[49] Health Cow urine is commonly used in India for medical purposes. It is distilled and then consumed by patients seeking treatment for a wide variety of illness. At present, there is no conclusive medical evidence that this has any effect.[50] ****** Israel (Hebrew: ‎, Yisra\'el; Arabic: إسرائيل‎, Isrā\'īl) officially the State of Israel Hebrew :מְדִינַת יִשְרָאֵל‎ , Medinat Yisra\'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā\'īl), is a country in Western Asia located on the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are also adjacent. With a population of about 7.28 million, the majority of whom are Jews, Israel is the world\'s only Jewish state. It is also home to other ethnic groups, including most numerously Arab citizens of Israel, as well as many religious groups including Muslims, Christians, Druze, Samaritans and others.The modern state of Israel has its roots in the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), a concept central to Judaism for over 3,000 years, and the heartland of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to which modern Jews are usually attributed. After World War I, the League of Nations approved the British Mandate of Palestine with the intent of creating a \"national home for the Jewish people.\" In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel declared independence and this was followed by a war with the surrounding Arab states, which refused to accept the plan. The Israelis were subsequently victorious in a series of wars confirming their independence and expanding the borders of the Jewish state beyond those in the UN Partition Plan. Since then, Israel has been in conflict with many of the neighboring Arab countries, resulting in several major wars and decades of violence that continue to this day. Since its foundation, Israel\'s boundaries and even the State\'s very right to exist have been subject to dispute, especially among its Arab neighbors. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and efforts are being made to reach a permanent accord with the Palestinians.Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system and universal suffrage. The Prime Minister serves as head of government and the Knesset serves as Israel\'s legislative body. In terms of nominal gross domestic product, the nation\'s economy is estimated as being the 44th-largest in the world. Israel ranks high among Middle Eastern countries on the bases of human development, freedom of the press, and economic competitiveness. Jerusalem is the country\'s capital, seat of government, and largest city, while Israel\'s main financial center is Tel Aviv. ********* The Land of Israel, known in Hebrew as Eretz Yisrael, has been sacred to the Jewish people since Biblical times. According to the Torah, the Land of Israel was promised to the three Patriarchs of the Jewish people, by God, as their homeland; scholars have placed this period in the early 2nd millennium BCE. According to the traditional view, around the 11th century BCE, the first of a series of Israelite kingdoms and states established rule over the region; these Israelite kingdoms and states ruled intermittently for the following one thousand years. The sites holiest to Judaism are located within Israel.Between the time of the Israelite kingdoms and the 7th-century Muslim conquests, the Land of Israel fell under Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Sassanian, and Byzantine rule. Jewish presence in the region dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE and the resultant large-scale expulsion of Jews. In 628/9, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius conducted a massacre and expulsion of the Jews, at which point the Jewish population probably reached its lowest point. Nevertheless, a continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel remained. Although the main Jewish population shifted from the Judea region to the Galilee, the Mishnah and part of the Talmud, among Judaism\'s most important religious texts, were composed in Israel during this period. The Land of Israel was captured from the Byzantine Empire around 636 CE during the initial Muslim conquests. Control of the region transferred between the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Crusaders over the next six centuries, before falling in the hands of the Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260. In 1516, the Land of Israel became a part of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the region until the 20th century.Jews living in the Diaspora have long aspired to return to Zion and the Land of Israel. That hope and yearning was articulated in the Bible, and is a central theme in the Jewish prayer book. Beginning in the 12th century, Catholic persecution of Jews led to a steady stream leaving Europe to settle in the Holy Land, increasing in numbers after Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. During the 16th century large communities struck roots in the Four Holy Cities, and in the second half of the 18th century, entire Hasidic communities from Eastern Europe settled in the Holy Land.The first large wave of modern immigration, known as the First Aliyah (Hebrew: עלייה), began in 1881, as Jews fled pogroms in Eastern Europe. While the Zionist movement already existed in theory, Theodor Herzl is credited with founding political Zionism, a movement which sought to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, by elevating the Jewish Question to the international plane In 1896, Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), offering his vision of a future state; the following year he presided over the first World Zionist Congress.The Second Aliyah (1904–1914), began after the Kishinev pogrom. Some 40,000 Jews settled in Palestine. Both the first and second waves of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews, but those in the Second Aliyah included socialist pioneers who established the kibbutz movement. During World War I, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration, which \"view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.\" The Jewish Legion, a group of battalions composed primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Palestine. Arab opposition to the plan led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of the Jewish organization known as the Haganah (meaning \"The Defense\" in Hebrew), from which the Irgun and Lehi split off.In 1922, the League of Nations granted the United Kingdom a mandate over Palestine for the express purpose of \"placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home\". The population of the area at this time was predominantly Muslim Arab, while the largest urban area in the region, Jerusalem, was predominantly Jewish.Jewish immigration continued with the Third Aliyah (1919–1923) and Fourth Aliyah (1924–1929), which together brought 100,000 Jews to Palestine. In the wake of the Jaffa riots in the early days of the Mandate, the British restricted Jewish immigration and territory slated for the Jewish state was allocated to Transjordan. The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led to the Fifth Aliyah, with an influx of a quarter of a million Jews. This influx resulted in the Arab revolt of 1936–1939 and led the British to cap immigration with the White Paper of 1939. With countries around the world turning away Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, a clandestine movement known as Aliyah Bet was organized to bring Jews to Palestine. By the end of World War II, Jews accounted for 33% of the population of Palestine, up from 11% in 1922.After 1945 the United Kingdom became embroiled in an increasingly violent conflict with the Jews. In 1947, the British government withdrew from commitment to the Mandate of Palestine, stating it was unable to arrive at a solution acceptable to both Arabs and Jews. The newly created United Nations approved the UN Partition Plan (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181) on November 29, 1947, dividing the country into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city – a corpus separatum – administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status. The Jewish community accepted the plan, but the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee rejected it. The day after the UN decision fighting began between the Arabs and Jews of Palestine.On May 14, 1948, the day before the end of the British Mandate, the Jewish Agency proclaimed independence, naming the country Israel. The following day five Arab countries – Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq – invaded Israel, launching the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Morocco, Sudan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia also sent troops to assist the invaders. After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations on May 11, 1949. During the war 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, or about 80% of the previous Arab population, fled the country. The fate of the Palestinian refugees today is a major point of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.These years were marked by mass immigration of Holocaust survivors and an influx of Jews persecuted in Arab lands. The population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958. Most arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma\'abarot. By 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in these tent cities. The need to solve the crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany that triggered mass protests by Jews angered at the idea of Israel \"doing business\" with Germany.During the 1950s, Israel was frequently attacked by Palestinian fedayeen, mainly from the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. In 1956, Israel joined a secret alliance with The United Kingdom and France aimed at recapturing the Suez Canal, which the Egyptians had nationalized (see the Suez Crisis). Despite capturing the Sinai Peninsula, Israel was forced to retreat due to pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union in return for guarantees of Israeli shipping rights in the Red Sea and the Canal.At the start of the following decade, Israel captured Adolf Eichmann, an architect of the Final Solution hiding in Argentina, and brought him to trial.The trial had a major impact on public awareness of the Holocaust, and to date Eichmann remains the only person executed by Israel, although John Demjanjuk was sentenced to die before his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel. ********* The Israeli Declaration of Independence (Hebrew: הכרזת העצמאות‎, Hakhrazat HaAtzma\'ut or Hebrew: מגילת העצמאות‎ Megilat HaAtzma\'ut), made on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar, 5708), the day the British Mandate expired, was the official announcement that the new Jewish state named the State of Israel had been formally established in parts of what was known as the British Mandate for Palestine and on land where, in antiquity, the Kingdoms of Israel, Judah and Judea had once been.It has been called the start of the \"Third Jewish Commonwealth\" by some observers. The \"First Jewish Commonwealth\" ended with the destruction of Solomon\'s Temple in 586 BCE, the second with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the crushing of Bar Kokhba\'s revolt by the Roman Empire in the year 135.In Israel the event is celebrated annually with the national holiday Yom Ha\'atzmaut (Hebrew: יום העצמאות‎, lit. Independence Day), the timing of which is based on the Hebrew calendar date of the declaration (5, Iyar, 5708). Palestinias commemorate the event as Nakba Day (Arabic: يوم النكبة‎, Yawm al-nakba, lit. Catastrophe Day) on 15 May every year.The General Assembly of the United Nations had resolved that \'No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex.\' and that a declaration to that effect would be made to the United Nations by the Provisional Government of each proposed State before independence. The General Assembly resolution mandated that the stipulations contained in the Declaration were to be non-derogable, they were to be \'recognized as fundamental laws of the State and no law, regulation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations, nor shall any law, regulation or official action prevail over them.\' The Declaration did promise that the State of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture. However, the Knesset maintains that declaration is neither a law nor an ordinary legal document.The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that the guarantees were merely guiding principles, and that the Declaration is not a constitutional law making a practical ruling on the upholding or nullification of various ordinances and statutes. Whenever an explicit statutory measure of the Knesset leaves no room for doubt, it is honored even if inconsistent with the principles in the Declaration of Independence.While the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had been a goal of Zionist organisations since the late 19th century, it was not until 1917 and the Balfour declaration that the idea gained the official backing of a major power. The declaration stated that the British government supported the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. In 1936 the Peel Commission suggested partitioning Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, though it was rejected as unworkable by the government and was at least partially to blame for the 1936-39 Arab revolt.In the face of increasing violence, the British handed the issue over to the United Nations. The result was Resolution 181, a partition plan to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs. The Jewish state was to receive around 56% of the land area of Mandate Palestine, encompassing 82% of the Jewish population, though it would be separated from Jerusalem, designated as an area to be administered by the UN. The plan was accepted by most of the Jewish population, but rejected by much of the Arab populace. On 29 November 1947, the plan was put to a vote in the United Nations General Assembly The result was 33 to 13 in favour of the plan, with 10 abstentions. The Arab countries (all of which had opposed the plan) proposed to query the International Court of Justice on the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants, but were again defeated. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal from the territory (15 May 1948), though the UK refused to implement the plan, arguing it was unacceptable to both sides ****** Hashomer Hatzair (Hebrew: השומר הצעיר‎, also transliterated Hashomer Hatsair or HaShomer HaTzair, translating as The Youth Guard) is a Socialist-Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group\'s political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine Early formation Hashomer Hatzair came into being as a result of the merger of two groups, Hashomer (\"The Guard\") a Zionist Scouting group, and Ze\'irei Zion (\"The Youth of Zion\") which was an ideological circle that studied Zionism, left wing socialism and Jewish history. Hashomer Hatzair is the oldest Zionist youth movement still in existence. Initially Marxist-Zionist, the movement was influenced by the ideas of Ber Borochov and Gustav Wyneken as well as Baden-Powell and the German Wandervogel movement. Hashomer Hatzair believed that the liberation of Jewish youth could be accomplished by aliya (\"emigration\") to Palestine and living in kibbutzim. After the war the movement spread to Jewish communities throughout the world as a scouting movement. Members of the movement settled in Mandatory Palestine as early as in 1919. In 1927, the four kibbutzim founded by Hashomer Hatzair banded together to form the Kibbutz Artzi federation. The movement also formed a political party which shared the name Hashomer Hartzair, advocating a Binational solution in mandatory Palestine with equality between Arabs and Jews. That is why, when a small group of Zionist leaders met in New York in May 1942 in the Biltmore Hotel, Hashomer Hatzair representatives voted against the so-called Biltmore Program. In 1936, the kibbutz-based Hashomer Hatzair party launched an urban political party, the Socialist League of Palestine, which would represent non-kibbutzniks who shared the political approach of the members of Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim and the youth movement in the political organizations of the Yishuv (as the Jewish community in Palestine was known). The Socialist League was the only Zionist political party within the Yishuv to accept Arab members as equals, support Arab rights, and call for a binational state in Palestine. In the 1930s, Hashomer Hatzair (along with Mapai) was affiliated with the left-wing \"Second-and-a-half\" International, the International Revolutionary Marxist Centre (also known as the \"London Bureau\") rather than the more mainstream socialist Labour and Socialist International or the Leninist Third International. Growth and the Holocaust By 1939, Hashomer Hatzair had 70,000 members worldwide. The movement\'s membership base was in Eastern Europe. With the advent of World War II and the Holocaust, members of Hashomer Hatzair focused their attention on resistance against the Nazis. Mordechaj Anielewicz, the leader of Hashomer Hatzair\'s Warsaw branch, became head of the Jewish Fighting Organization and one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Other members of the movement were involved in Jewish resistance and rescue in Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia. The leaders of Hashomer Hatzair in Romania were arrested and executed for anti-fascist activities. After the war, the movement was involved in organizing illegal immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine. Members were also involved in the Haganah military movement as well as in the leadership of the Palmach. Hashomer Hatzair today Today, Hashomer Hatzair continues as a youth movement based in Israel, and operates internationally. In Europe, North and Latin America, as well as in Australia, Hashomer Hatzair organizes activities and camps (machanot) for the youth. Activities are still relatively ideological, but over time have been adapted to the needs of modern communities, vastly different from the context in which Hashomer Hatzair was created. The movement has 7,000 members worldwide (excluding Israel) running weekly youth activities and camps in Germany, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina. Uruguay, Chile, France, Belgium. Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belarus, Ukraine and Australia. Famous alumni include Arik Einstein, Tony Cliff, Ernest Mandel, Mordecai Anielewicz, Abraham Leon, Benny Morris, Eliane Karp, Leopold Trepper, Amnon Linn, Abba Hushi, Sam Spiegel, Irv Weinstein, Manès Sperber, Leon Rosselson, José Gurvich, Milo Adler Gilles and even Isser Harel and Menachem Begin who were briefly members before joining Mapai and the right wing Betar respectively, as well as Kerem B\'Yavneh\'s Rabbi Avraham Rivlin. Noam Chomsky sympathized with and worked with the group, although he was never a member, and his views are generally considered beyond the pale of acceptance by the movement. With the merger of the United Kibbutz Movement and Kibbutz Artzi, the likelihood of a merger between Hashomer Hatzair and UKM\'s youth movement, Habonim Dror, has increased and the two youth movements, once rivals, have increasingly co-operated in various countries where they co-exist. The movements even share an office in New York. However, the views of each movement on religion may be an obstacle to merger as Habonim Dror has a stronger identification with cultural Judaism as opposed to Hashomer Hatzair, which has been at times stridently secular and anti-religious — seeing itself as a leader of a legitimate expression of a secular stream of Judaism. Brazil In Brazil, \"Shomer\" has five branches: Rio de Janeiro (2), São Paulo, Florianópoles and Brasilia. Normally, the activities runs weekly meetings as well as bi-annual camps. The educations goes out of the Jewish community too and the achievers goes up to \"Favela do Borel\" to educate the poor children from Rio de Janeiro. Argentina Once a huge movement inside the large Argentinian Jewish Community, Hashomer Hatzair Argentina suffered from decay common to all Zionist youth movements in Argentina during the last decades, as well as several military dictatorships in the country\'s history that directly or indirectly led to the closure of several of its kenim. Today the movement operates in Tzavta Centro Comunitario (Tzavta Community Center), in the neighborhood of Almagro, City of Buenos Aires. It is one of 9 Zionist Youth Movements in the city. It has around 120 members, running regular Saturday activities and secular Kabalat Shabat service, besides two machanot per year. Australia The movement in Australia is located in Melbourne and was established in 1953 as a break away from Habonim Dror. There was briefly a ken (branch) in Sydney during the 1960s, but it closed due to a lack of members. Many of the original bogrim (leaders) of Australian Hashomer Hatzair settled in kibbutz Nirim. Its building in Melbourne is known as Beit Anielewicz, located in the suburb of East St. Kilda, and is currently being upgraded. It runs weekly meetings as well as bi-annual camps which take place in the Australian outback, during the summer and winter months. Currently there are close to one hundred members of \'Hashy\' Australia. Meetings are held every Sunday from 3–5pm for Juniors and 6–8pm for Senior. During Year 10 (age: 15–16) chanichim undergo a \'hadrachah\' (leadership) course. This course is run by current bogrim in the movement and teaches the chanichim leadership skills which are used when they lead members of the Junior movement in Year 11. The current Year 11 madrichim (leaders) are from the group of Sasa. Hashomer Hatzair Australia has a strong belief that chanichim should be active in the community, helping whenever they can. Members often go to rallies and run programs for disadvantaged children. In Hashomer Australia, every year level has its own kvutza (group). These groups are named after Hashomer kibutzim in Israel. Current kvutzot include: Ga\'ash, Sasa, Nir Oz, Lahav and Metzer, to name a few. As with most of the kenim around the world, every year Hashy sends the chanichim who have just completed school on a 10-month Shnat program in Israel. The current group in Israel is Nir\'oz. After returning from the Shnat program, bogrim have a two year commitment to the movement in which they lead the chanichim of the movement or take up various administrative roles (tafkidim), including Merakez (head of the movement), Rosh Hinukh (head of education), Mazkir (secretary) and Gizbar (treasurer). The current bogrim are from the groups of Yasur, Mishmar HaEmek and Nir\'oz. Liraz Jedwab is the Merakez of 2009. USA and Canada In the United States and Canada camps are organized which last through the school summer break. The two summer camps near Liberty, New York, USA and Perth, Ontario, Canada are both called Camp Shomria. Furthermore the movement runs activities in local cities across the continent on a regular basis throughout the year. Hashomer Hatzair runs educational activities promoting the peace process, socialist-Zionism, Hagshama Atzmit (self-actualization), withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, and social activism. Through seminars, camps (winter/summer), worldwide programs and weekly activities in which youth leads youth, Hashomer Hatzair aims to create a just world through socialism, equality of people, and the betterment of Israel and the world. Hashomer Hatzair has a program called Shnat which sends shomrim (members) to Israel for ten months after high school. Hashomer Hatzair has collaborated with Habonim Dror and other left-wing Zionist groups to form the Union of Progressive Zionists campus network. Israel After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party merged with other left wing parties to form Mapam which became the political party of both the youth movement and the Kibbutz Artzi federation. In Israel it is was traditionally aligned with Mapam and later Meretz. It is not officially aligned with Meretz\'s successor party, Meretz-Yachad. After a recent merger of the Meretz-aligned Kibbutz Artzi Federation with the Labour Party\'s United Kibbutz Movement, Hashomer Hatzair is officially not aligned with either party though, by tradition, it is close in outlook to Meretz-Yachad. France In France, the youth movement spells Hachomer Hatzaïr with a \"c\". It was founded in Paris in Belleville area, in 1933, by Jews from Poland and Tunisia. Hashomer Hatzair France is extremely active, it has weekly activities, summer, winter and automn camps. There are now about 500 members. South Africa Hashomer Hatzair operated in South Africa until sometime in the 1980s when the South Africa government banned the movement and arrested its members because of their anti-apartheid teachings and activism. Austria The Austrian Hashomer Hatzair traces its roots to the original Hashomer Hatzair founded in the Galicia region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Hashomer were among the earliest members of the Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund in 1914.[1] From 1956 to 1972 they were again members of the Scout association Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund.[2] Today the association is a member of the Austrian National Youth Council. Hashomer Hatzair operates one ken in Vienna. Italy Hashomer Hatzair operates four kens (branches) in Italy — in Rome, Milan, Florence, and Turin. Belgium In Belgium, Hashomer Hatzaïr was established in 1920. Today, 220 hanihim come each Saturday to take part in folk dancing (rekudei\'am), ludic activities (peoulot) and Shabbat celebrations (oneg shabbat). Four camps are organized throughout the year. The November, Winter and Easter camps usually take place in Holland and the Summer camp in France. The shaliah is Tal Eitan and the shirfa madrihim is composed of Yehiam and Ein Dor and the roshken are Sharon Hancart and Elie Melviez. There was a ken in Liege but it was too small so it has closed. Switzerland In Switzerland, Ken Yitzhak Rabin in Zürich consists of some 100 hanihim, meeting on Shabbat afternoon and for two or three camps (annually in autumn and winter, bi-annually in summer), next to the Bogrim\'s bi-annual trips to Israel or Poland. Special events are held for Pessach, Chanuka and the Yitzhak Rabin memorial. The Ken was founded in 1935 and joined World Hashomer in 1938. During the 2nd world war, there were five major Kenim (Zurich, Basel, Berne, Biel, Geneva) plus activities in a few smaller cities and in the refugee centers. Swiss Shomer members having made alija can be encountered e.g. in Lehavot Habashan and Magen. Today (2009), the Shomer is the largest Jewish youth movement in Switzerland. Mexico The Mexican branch of Hashomer Hatzair was established in 1940. Since 1983, its \"ken\" (Hebrew for \"nest\", i.e., its headquarters), named after Mordechai Anielewicz, is currently located in the Polanco neighbourhood, western part of Mexico city. Hashomer Hatzair Mexico was founded by Avner Aliphas, a Hebrew professor at the Yiddish school of Mexico and later founder of the \"Tarbut\" Jewish day school. Aliphas was born in Kolno, Poland, in 1912, and made aliyah (immigrated to Eretz Israel) in 1936 to join Kibbutz Negba. In 1939 he returned to Mexico where he was active in the Zionist movement. In 1940, supported by the Zionist Organization in Mexico, Aliphas founded Hashomer Hatzair in Mexico, thus giving an option for young people who had been educated towards Zionism at home. This was the first Jewish youth movement that existed in the country; its first Ken was in Tacuba 15, in the city center. During the next decades, Hashomer Hatzair was one of the few places for secular socialization for the Jewish community. The movement had national presence, with Kenim in several cities, such as San Luis Potosí and Monterrey. As of the present day, the Mexcian branch of Hashomer Hatzair comprises approximately eighty members who regularly attend cultural, educational and sporting events as a group. Life Movement (Tnuat Bogrim / Kidmah / Kidma / Kidmat Anilewicz) Around the world, Hashomer Hatzair members have founded a life movement to pick up where the youth movement leaves off. Groups have been organized in Israel by Israelis and non-Israelis, and others were formed in their countries of origin (such as in Canada and the United States). Canada and the United States The Life Movement in the United States and Canada has created three urban communes, one in New York and two in Toronto where members are experimenting with the Israeli model of communot in their home societies. In addition, a new winter trip to Israel for Bogrim called Mifgash takes place yearly **** Thebananais an ediblefruit, botanically aberry,[1][2]produced by several kinds of largeherbaceousflowering plantsin thegenusMusa.[3]In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be calledplantains, in contrast todessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich instarchcovered with a rind which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant. Almost all modern edibleparthenocarpic(seedless) bananas come from two wild species–Musa acuminataandMusa balbisiana. Thescientific namesof most cultivated bananas areMusa acuminata,Musa balbisiana, andMusa×paradisiacafor the hybridMusa acuminata×M.balbisiana, depending on theirgenomicconstitution. The old scientific nameMusa sapientumis no longer used.Musaspecies are native to tropicalIndomalayaandAustralia, and are likely to have been first domesticated inPapua New Guinea.[4][5]They are grown in 135 countries,[6]primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to makefiber,banana wineandbanana beerand asornamental plants.Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between \"bananas\" and \"plantains\". Especially in the Americas and Europe, \"banana\" usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of theCavendish group, which are the main exports from banana-growing countries. By contrast,Musacultivarswith firmer, starchier fruit are called \"plantains\". In other regions, such asSoutheast Asia, many more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the simple two-fold distinction is not useful and is not made in local languages.The term \"banana\" is also used as the common name for the plants which produce the fruit.[3]This can extend to other members of the genusMusalike thescarlet banana(Musa coccinea),pink banana(Musa velutina) and theFe\'i bananas. It can also refer to members of the genusEnsete, like thesnow banana(Ensete glaucum) and the economically importantfalse banana(Ensete ventricosum). Both genera are classified under the banana family,Musaceae.Contents[hide]1 Description2 Etymology3 Taxonomy4 Bananas and plantains5 Historical cultivation5.1 Early cultivation5.2 Plantation cultivation in the Caribbean, Central and South America5.3 Peasant cultivation for export in the Caribbean5.4 East Africa6 Modern cultivation6.1 Cavendish6.2 Ripening6.3 Storage and transport6.4 Production and export7 Pests, diseases, and natural disasters7.1 Panama disease7.1.1 Tropical race 47.2 Black sigatoka7.2.1 In East Africa7.3 Banana bunchy top virus7.4 Banana bacterial wilt8 Nutrition9 Culture9.1 Food and cooking9.1.1 Fruit9.1.2 Flower9.1.3 Leaves9.1.4 Trunk9.2 Fiber9.2.1 Textiles9.2.2 Paper9.3 Cultural roles9.3.1 Arts9.3.2 Religion and popular beliefs9.3.3 Unicode9.4 Other uses10 Notes11 Gallery12 References13 Bibliography14 Further reading15 External linksDescriptionA banana corm, about 25cm (10in) acrossA banana farm inChinawal, IndiaYoung banana plantThe banana plant is the largestherbaceousflowering plant.[7]All the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure usually called a \"corm\".[8]Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy, and are often mistaken fortrees, but what appears to be a trunk is actually a \"false stem\" orpseudostem. Bananas grow in a wide variety of soils, as long as the soil is at least 60cm deep, has good drainage and is not compacted.[9]The leaves of banana plants are composed of a \"stalk\" (petiole) and a blade (lamina). The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath; the tightly packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, which is all that supports the plant. The edges of the sheath meet when it is first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem the edges are forced apart.[10]Cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on the variety and growing conditions. Most are around 5m (16ft) tall, with a range from \'Dwarf Cavendish\' plants at around 3m (10ft) to \'Gros Michel\' at 7m (23ft) or more.[11][12]Leaves are spirally arranged and may grow 2.7 metres (8.9ft) long and 60cm (2.0ft) wide.[1]They are easily torn by the wind, resulting in the familiar frond look.[13]When a banana plant is mature, the corm stops producing new leaves and begins to form a flower spike orinflorescence. A stem develops which grows up inside the pseudostem, carrying the immature inflorescence until eventually it emerges at the top.[14]Each pseudostem normally produces a single inflorescence, also known as the \"banana heart\". (More are sometimes produced; an exceptional plant in thePhilippinesproduced five.[15]) After fruiting, the pseudostem dies, but offshoots will normally have developed from the base, so that the plant as a whole isperennial. In the plantation system of cultivation, only one of the offshoots will be allowed to develop in order to maintain spacing.[16]The inflorescence contains manybracts(sometimes incorrectly referred to as petals) between rows of flowers. The female flowers (which can develop into fruit) appear in rows further up the stem (closer to the leaves) from the rows of male flowers. The ovary isinferior, meaning that the tiny petals and other flower parts appear at the tip of the ovary.[17]The banana fruits develop from the banana heart, in a large hanging cluster, made up of tiers (called \"hands\"), with up to 20 fruit to a tier. The hanging cluster is known as a bunch, comprising 3–20tiers, or commercially as a \"banana stem\", and can weigh 30–50 kilograms (66–110lb). Individual banana fruits (commonly known as a banana or \"finger\") average 125 grams (0.276lb), of which approximately 75% iswaterand 25% dry matter (nutrient table, lower right).The fruit has been described as a \"leathery berry\".[18]There is a protective outer layer (apeelor skin) with numerous long, thin strings (thephloembundles), which run lengthwise between the skin and theedibleinner portion. The inner part of the common yellow dessert variety can be split lengthwise into three sections that correspond to the inner portions of the threecarpelsby manually deforming the unopened fruit.[19]In cultivated varieties, the seeds are diminished nearly to non-existence; their remnants are tiny black specks in the interior of the fruit.[20]Bananas are naturally slightlyradioactive,[21][22]more so than most other fruits, because of their potassium content and the small amounts of the isotopepotassium-40found in naturally occurring potassium.[23]Thebanana equivalent doseof radiation is sometimes used in nuclear communication to compare radiation levels and exposures.[24]Banana \'tree\' showing fruit and inflorescence.Bananainflorescence, partially openedFemale flowers have petals and other flower parts at the tip of the ovaryEtymologyThe word banana is thought to be of West African origin, possibly from theWolofwordbanaana, and passed into English via Spanish or widely in theIndianstate ofKeralais a member of theAAB cultivar groupThe genusMusawas created byCarl Linnaeusin 1753.[26]The name may be derived fromAntonius Musa, physician to the EmperorAugustus, or Linnaeus may have adapted theArabicword for banana,mauz.[27]Musais in the familyMusaceae. TheAPG III systemassigns Musaceae to the orderZingiberales, part of thecommelinidclade of themonocotyledonousflowering plants. Some 70 species ofMusawere recognized by theWorld Checklist of Selected Plant Familiesas of January 2013;[26]several produce edible fruit, while others are cultivated as ornamentals.[28]The classification of cultivated bananas has long been a problematic issue for taxonomists. Linnaeus originally placed bananas into two species based only on their uses as food:Musa sapientumfor dessert bananas andMusa paradisiacaforplantains. Subsequently, further species names were added. However, this approach proved inadequate to address the sheer number ofcultivarsexisting in the primary center of diversity of the genus,Southeast Asia. Many of these cultivars were given names which proved to besynonyms.[29]In a series of papers published from 1947 onwards, Ernest Cheesman showed that Linnaeus\'Musa sapientumandMusa paradisiacawere actually cultivars and descendants of two wild seed-producing species,Musa acuminataandMusa balbisiana, both first described byLuigi Aloysius Colla.[30]He recommended the abolition of Linnaeus\'s species in favor of reclassifying bananas according to three morphologically distinct groups of cultivars – those primarily exhibiting the botanical characteristics ofMusa balbisiana, those primarily exhibiting the botanical characteristics ofMusa acuminata, and those with characteristics that are the combination of the two.[29]Researchers Norman Simmonds and Ken Shepherd proposed a genome-based nomenclature system in 1955. This system eliminated almost all the difficulties and inconsistencies of the earlier classification of bananas based on assigning scientific names to cultivated varieties. Despite this, the original names are still recognized by some authorities today, leading to confusion.[30][31]The currently acceptedscientific namesfor most groups of cultivated bananas areMusa acuminataCollaandMusa balbisianaCollafor the ancestral species, andMusa×paradisiacaL.for the hybridM. acuminata×M. large number of subspecific and varietial names ofM.×paradisiaca, includingM. p.subsp.sapientum(L.) nom. superfl.Musa×sapientumL., and a large number of its varietal names, Baker, nom. illeg.Generally, modern classifications of banana cultivars follow Simmonds and Shepherd\'s system. Cultivars are placed in groups based on the number of chromosomes they have and which species they are derived from. Thus theLatundan bananais placed in the AAB Group, showing that it is a triploid derived from bothM. acuminata(A) andM. balbisiana(B). For a list of the cultivars classified under this system seeList of banana cultivars.In 2012, a team of scientists announced they had achieved a draft sequence of the genome ofMusa acuminata.[33]Bananas and plantainsIn regions such as North America and Europe,Musafruits offered for sale can be divided into \"bananas\" and \"plantains\", based on their intended use as food. Thus the banana producer and distributorChiquitaproduces publicity material for the American market which says that \"a plantain is not a banana\". The stated differences are that plantains are morestarchyand less sweet; they are eaten cooked rather than raw; they have thicker skin, which may be green, yellow or black; and they can be used at any stage of ripeness.[34]Linnaeus made the same distinction between plantains and bananas when first naming two \"species\" ofMusa.[35]Members of the \"plantain subgroup\" of banana cultivars, most important as food in West Africa and Latin America, correspond to the Chiquita description, having long pointed fruit. They are described by Ploetz et al. as \"true\" plantains, distinct from other cooking bananas.[36]The cooking bananas of East Africa belong to a different group, theEast African Highland bananas,[12]so would not qualify as \"true\" plantains on this definition.Cavendish bananasare the most common dessert bananas soldAn alternative approach divides bananas into dessert bananas and cooking bananas, with plantains being one of the subgroups of cooking bananas.[37]Triploidcultivars derived solely fromM.acuminataare examples of \"dessert bananas\", whereas triploid cultivars derived from the hybrid betweenM.acuminataandM.balbinosa(in particular the plantain subgroup of theAAB Group) are \"plantains\".[38][39]Small farmers inColombiagrow a much wider range of cultivars than large commercial plantations. A study of these cultivars showed that they could be placed into at least three groups based on their characteristics: dessert bananas, non-plantain cooking bananas, and plantains, although there were overlaps between dessert and cooking bananas.[40]In Southeast Asia – the center of diversity for bananas, both wild and cultivated – the distinction between \"bananas\" and \"plantains\" does not work, according to Valmayor et al. Many bananas are used both raw and cooked. There are starchy cooking bananas which are smaller than those eaten raw. The range of colors, sizes and shapes is far wider than in those grown or sold in Africa, Europe or the Americas.[35]Southeast Asian languages do not make the distinction between \"bananas\" and \"plantains\" that is made in English (and Spanish). Thus bothCavendish cultivars, the classic yellow dessert bananas, andSaba cultivars, used mainly for cooking, are bananas, grown and eaten in the islands of the Pacific, are derived from entirely different wild species than traditional bananas and plantains. Most Fe\'i bananas are cooked, butKarat bananas, which are short and squat with bright red skins, very different from the usual yellow dessert bananas, are eaten raw.[42]In summary, in commerce in Europe and the Americas (although not in small-scale cultivation), it is possible to distinguish between \"bananas\", which are eaten raw, and \"plantains\", which are cooked. In other regions of the world, particularly India, Southeast Asia and the islands of the Pacific, there are many more kinds of banana and the two-fold distinction is not useful and not made in local languages. Plantains are one of many kinds of cooking bananas, which are not always distinct from dessert bananas.Historical cultivationEarly cultivationSee also:Musa acuminataOriginalnative rangesof the ancestors of modern edible bananas.Musa acuminatais shown in green andMusa balbisianain orange.[43]Farmers inSoutheast AsiaandPapua New Guineafirstdomesticatedbananas. Recentarchaeologicaland palaeoEnvironmental evidence atKuk Swampin theWestern Highlands Provinceof Papua New Guinea suggests that banana cultivation there goes back to at least 5000BCE, and possibly to 8000 BCE.[4][44]It is likely that other species were later and independently domesticated elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia is the region ofprimary diversityof the banana. Areas of secondary diversity are found inAfrica, indicating a long history of banana cultivation in the region.[45]Actual and probable diffusion of bananas duringIslamic times(700–1500 CE)[46]Phytolithdiscoveries inCameroondating to the first millennium BCE[47]triggered an as yet unresolved debate about the date of first cultivation in Africa. There is linguistic evidence that bananas were known inMadagascararound that time.[48]The earliest prior evidence indicates that cultivation dates to no earlier than late 6th century CE.[49]It is likely, however, that bananas were brought at least toMadagascarif not to the East African coast during the phase ofMalagasycolonization of the island from South East Asia c. 400 CE.[50]The banana may also have been present in isolated locations elsewhere in theMiddle Easton the eve ofIslam. Thespread of Islamwas followed by far-reaching diffusion. There are numerous references to it in Islamic texts (such as poems andhadiths) beginning in the 9th century. By the 10th century the banana appears in texts fromPalestineandEgypt. From there it diffused into North Africa andMuslim Iberia. During the medieval ages, bananas fromGranadawere considered among the best in the Arab world.[46]In 650, Islamic conquerors brought the banana to Palestine. Today, banana consumption increases significantly in Islamic countries duringRamadan, the month of daylight fasting.[51]Bananas were certainly grown in the ChristianKingdom of Cyprusby the late medieval period. Writing in 1458, the Italian traveller and writer Gabriele Capodilista wrote favourably of the extensive farm produce of the estates at Episkopi, near modern-dayLimassol, including the region\'s banana plantations.[52]Bananas were introduced to theAmericasbyPortuguesesailors who brought the fruits fromWest Africain the 16th century.[53]Manywild banana speciesas well as cultivars exist in extraordinary diversity inIndia,China, andSoutheast Asia.There are fuzzybananas whose skins are bubblegum pink; green-and-white striped bananas with pulp the color of orange sherbet; bananas that, when cooked, taste like strawberries. The Double Mahoi plant can produce two bunches at once. The Chinese name of the aromatic Go San Heong banana means \'You can smell it from the next mountain.\' The fingers on one banana plant grow fused; another produces bunches of a thousand fingers, each only an inch long.— Mike Peed,The New Yorker[54]In 1999 archaeologists in London discovered what they believed to be the oldest banana in the UK, in aTudorrubbish tip.[55]Plantation cultivation in the Caribbean, Central and South AmericaMain article:History of modern banana plantations in the AmericasFruits ofwild-typebananas have numerous large, hard seeds.In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portuguese colonists started banana plantations in the Atlantic Islands,Brazil, and western Africa.[56]North Americans began consuming bananas on a small scale at very high prices shortly after the Civil War, though it was only in the 1880s that it became more widespread.[57]As late as theVictorian Era, bananas were not widely known in Europe, although they were available.[56]Jules Verneintroduces bananas to his readers with detailed descriptions inAround the World in Eighty Days(1872).The earliest modern plantations originated in Jamaica and the relatedWestern Caribbean Zone, including most ofCentral America. It involved the combination of modern transportation networks of steamships and railroads with the development of refrigeration that allowed bananas to have more time between harvesting and ripening. North America shippers likeLorenzo Dow BakerandAndrew Preston, the founders of theBoston Fruit Companystarted this process in the 1870s, but railroad builders likeMinor C Keithalso participated, eventually culminating in the multi-national giant corporations like today\'sChiquita Brands InternationalandDole.[57]These companies were monopolistic,vertically integrated(meaning they controlled growing, processing, shipping and marketing) and usually used political manipulation to buildenclave economies(economies that were internally self-sufficient, virtually tax exempt, and export oriented that contribute very little to the host economy). Their political maneuvers, which gave rise to the termBanana republicfor states like Honduras and Guatemala, included working with local elites and their rivalries to influence politics or playing the international interests of the United States, especially during theCold War, to keep the political climate favorable to their interests.[58]Peasant cultivation for export in the CaribbeanMain article:History of peasant banana production in the AmericasThe vast majority of the world\'s bananas today are cultivated for family consumption or for sale on local markets. India is the world leader in this sort of production, but many other Asian and African countries where climate and soil conditions allow cultivation also host large populations of banana growers who sell at least some of their crop.[59]There are peasant sector banana growers who produce for the world market in the Caribbean, however. TheWindward Islandsare notable for the growing, largely of Cavendish bananas, for an international market, generally in Europe but also in North America. In the Caribbean, and especially in Dominica where this sort of cultivation is widespread, holdings are in the 1–2 acre range. In many cases the farmer earns additional money from other crops, from engaging in labor outside the farm, and from a share of the earnings of relatives living overseas. This style of cultivation often was popular in the islands as bananas required little labor input and brought welcome extra income.[citation needed]Banana crops are vulnerable to destruction by high winds, such as tropical storms orcyclones.[60]After the signing of theNAFTAagreements in the 1990s, however, the tide turned against peasant producers. Their costs of production were relatively high and the ending of favorable tariff and other supports, especially in the European Economic Community, made it difficult for peasant producers to compete with the bananas grown on large plantations by the well capitalized firms like Chiquita and Dole. Not only did the large companies have access to cheap labor in the areas they worked, but they were better able to afford modern agronomic advances such as fertilization. The \"dollar banana\" produced by these concerns made the profit margins for peasant bananas unsustainable.[citation needed]Caribbean countries have sought to redress this problem by providing government supported agronomic services and helping to organize producers\' cooperatives. They have also been supporters of theFair Trademovement which seeks to balance the inequities in the world trade in commodities.[citation needed]East AfricaMain article:East African Highland bananasMost farms supply local consumption. Cooking bananas represent a major food source and a majorincomesource for smallhold farmers. In east Africa,highland bananasare of greatest importance as a staple food crop. In countries such asUganda,Burundi, andRwandaper capita consumption has been estimated at 45 kilograms (99lb) per year, the highest in the world.[citation needed]Modern cultivationAll widely cultivated bananas today descend from the two wild bananasMusa acuminataandMusa balbisiana. While the original wild bananas contained large seeds,diploidorpolyploidcultivars (some beinghybrids) with tiny seeds are preferred for human raw fruit consumption.[61]These are propagatedasexuallyfrom offshoots. The plant is allowed to produce two shoots at a time; a larger one for immediate fruiting and a smaller \"sucker\" or \"follower\" to produce fruit in 6–8 months. The life of a banana plantation is 25 years or longer, during which time the individual stools or planting sites may move slightly from their original positions as lateralrhizomeformation dictates.[citation needed]Cultivated bananas areparthenocarpic, i.e. the flesh of the fruit swells and ripens without its seeds being fertilized and developing. Lacking viable seeds, propagation typically involves farmers removing and transplanting part of the underground stem (called a corm). Usually this is done by carefully removing a sucker (a vertical shoot that develops from the base of the banana pseudostem) with some roots intact. However, smallsympodialcorms, representing not yet elongated suckers, are easier to transplant and can be left out of the ground for up to two weeks; they require minimal care and can be shipped in bulk.[citation needed]It is not necessary to include the corm or root structure to propagate bananas; severed suckers without root material can be propagated in dampsand, although this takes somewhat longer.[citation needed]In some countries, commercial propagation occurs by means oftissue culture. This method is preferred since it ensures disease-free planting material. When using vegetative parts such as suckers for propagation, there is a risk of transmitting diseases (especially the devastatingPanama disease).[citation needed]As a non-seasonal crop, bananas are available fresh year-round.[62]CavendishMain article:Cavendish bananasCavendish bananasare the main commercial banana cultivars sold in the world market.In global commerce in 2009, by far the most important cultivars belonged to the triploidAAAgroupofMusa acuminata, commonly referred to as Cavendish group bananas. They accounted for the majority of banana exports,[61]despite only coming into existence in 1836.[63]The cultivarsDwarf CavendishandGrand Nain(Chiquita Banana) gained popularity in the 1950s after the previous mass-produced cultivar,Gros Michel(also an AAA group cultivar), became commercially unviable due toPanama disease, caused by the fungusFusarium oxysporumwhich attacks the roots of the banana plant.[61]Cavendish cultivars are resistant to the Panama Disease but in 2013 there were fears that theBlack Sigatokafungus would in turn make Cavendish bananas unviable.[64]Ease of transport and shelf life rather than superior taste make the Dwarf Cavendish the main export banana.[citation needed]Even though it is no longer viable for large scale cultivation, Gros Michel is not extinct and is still grown in areas where Panama disease is not found.[65]Likewise, Dwarf Cavendish and Grand Nain are in no danger of extinction, but they may leave supermarket shelves if disease makes it impossible to supply the global market. It is unclear if any existing cultivar can replace Cavendish bananas, so varioushybridisationandgenetic engineeringprograms are attempting to create a disease-resistant, mass-market banana.[61]RipeningExport bananas are picked green, and ripen in special rooms upon arrival in the destination country. These rooms are air-tight and filled withethylene gasto induce ripening. The vivid yellow color consumers normally associate with supermarket bananas is, in fact, caused by the artificial ripening process.[66][67]Flavor and texture are also affected by ripening temperature. Bananas are refrigerated to between 13.5 and 15°C (56.3 and 59.0°F) during transport. At lower temperatures, ripening permanently stalls, and the bananas turn gray as cell walls break down. The skin of ripe bananas quickly blackens in the 4°C (39°F) Environment of a domesticrefrigerator, although the fruit inside remains unaffected.Ripened bananas (left, undersunlight) fluoresce in blue when exposed toUV light.\"Tree-ripened\" Cavendish bananas have a greenish-yellow appearance which changes to a brownish-yellow as they ripen further. Although both flavor and texture of tree-ripened bananas is generally regarded as superior to any type of green-picked fruit,[citation needed]this reduces shelf life to only 7–10 days.[citation needed]Bananas can be ordered by the retailer \"ungassed\" (i.e.not treated with ethylene), and may show up at the supermarket fully green.Guineos verdes(green bananas) that have not been gassed will never fully ripen before becoming rotten. Instead of fresh eating, these bananas are best suited to cooking, as seen in Mexican culinary dishes.[citation needed]A 2008 study reported that ripe bananasfluorescewhen exposed toultravioletlight. This property is attributed to the degradation ofchlorophyllleading to the accumulation of a fluorescent product in the skin of the fruit. The chlorophyllbreakdown productis stabilized by apropionateestergroup. Banana-plant leaves also fluoresce in the same way. Green bananas do not fluoresce. The study suggested that this allows animals which can see light in the ultraviolet spectrum (tetrachromatsandpentachromats) to more easily detect ripened bananas.[68]Storage and transportBananas must be transported over long distances from the tropics to world markets. To obtain maximum shelf life, harvest comes before the fruit is mature. The fruit requires careful handling, rapid transport to ports, cooling, and refrigerated shipping. The goal is to prevent the bananas from producing their natural ripening agent, ethylene. This technology allows storage and transport for 3–4 weeks at 13°C (55°F). On arrival, bananas are held at about 17°C (63°F) and treated with a low concentration of ethylene. After a few days, the fruit begins to ripen and is distributed for final sale. Unripe bananas can not be held in home refrigerators because they suffer from the cold.[citation needed]Ripe bananas can be held for a few days at home. If bananas are too green, they can be put in a brown paper bag with an apple or tomato overnight to speed up the ripening process.[69]Carbon dioxide (which bananas produce) and ethylene absorbents extend fruit life even at high temperatures. This effect can be exploited by packing banana in apolyethylenebag and including an ethylene absorbent, e.g.,potassium permanganate, on an inert carrier. The bag is then sealed with a band or string. This treatment has been shown to more than double lifespans up to 3–4 weeks without the need for refrigeration.[70][71][72]Production and exportProduction and export of bananas and plantains by country[Note 1]Country Millionsof tonnes Percentageof worldtotalTable 1: Production (2012)India 24.9 18%China 10.6 8%Uganda 9.8 7%Philippines 9.2 7%Ecuador 7.6 5%Brazil 6.9 5%Indonesia 6.2 4%Colombia 5.3 4%Cameroon 4.9 3%Ghana 3.6 3%All other countries 50.2 36%Total world 139.2 100%Table 2: Exports (2011)Ecuador 5.2 29%Costa Rica 1.8 10%Colombia 1.8 10%Philippines 1.6 9%Guatemala 1.5 8%All other countries 6.0 34%Total world 17.9 100%Indian Bananas, various varieties sold in a rural shop in South IndiaStatistics on the production and export of bananas and plantains are available from theFood and Agriculture Organization. Some countries produce statistics which distinguish between bananas and plantains, but two of the top three producers (IndiaandChina) do not, so comparisons can only be made using the total for bananas and plantains combined. The 2012 statistics (see Table 1) show that India led the world in banana production, producing around 18% of the worldwide crop of 139million metric tonnes.Philippineswas the next largest producer with around 7% of the worldwide crop. Its national data does distinguish between bananas and plantains, and shows that the latter made up over 95% of production. Ten countries produced around two thirds of the total world production.[Note 1]The statistics for the export of bananas and plantains show a rather different picture (see Table 2). Total world exports at around 18million metric tonnes amounted to only 12% of total world production; two thirds of the exports were generated by only five countries. The top three producing countries do not appear in this table, and two countries,Costa RicaandGuatemala, do not appear in the table of top producers. Only the Philippines has a consistent position in both tables. Exports were dominated byEcuador, with 29% of the world total. Statistics for Ecuador distinguish between bananas and plantains; 93% of its exports were classified as bananas.[Note 1]Bananas and plantains constitute a major staplefood cropfor millions of people indeveloping countries. In most tropical countries, green (unripe) bananas used forcookingrepresent the main cultivars. Bananas are cooked in ways that are similar topotatoes. Both can befried,boiled,baked, or chipped and have similartasteand texture when served. One banana provides about the samecaloriesas one potato.[citation needed]Most producers are small-scalefarmerseither for home consumption or local markets. Because bananas and plantains produce fruit year-round, they provide an extremely valuable food source during thehunger season(when the food from one annual/semi-annual harvest has been consumed, and the next is still to come). Bananas and plantains are therefore critical to globalfood security.Bananas have been an important source of disagreement in the Doha Round of trade talks. A study forICTSDshowed that the new deal on EU banana import tariffs will be a boon toLatin Americanexporters but would trigger a drop in exports of the fruit from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.[73]Bananas are among the most widely consumed foods in the world.Chiquita,Del Monte,Dole, andFyffesgrow their own bananas in Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica,Guatemala, andHonduras. Banana plantations are capital intensive and demand significant expertise. The majority of independent growers are large and wealthy landowners in these countries. Producers have attempted to raise prices via marketing them as \"fair trade\" orRainforest Alliance-certified in some countries.[citation needed]The banana has an extensive trade history starting with firms such as the IrishFyffesand the USUnited Fruit Company(now Chiquita) at the end of the 19th century. For much of the 20th century, bananas andcoffeedominated the export economies ofCentral America. In the 1930s, bananas andcoffeemade up as much as 75% of the region\'s exports. As late as 1960, the two crops accounted for 67% of the exports from the region. Though the two were grown in similar regions, they tended not to be distributed together. TheUnited Fruit Companybased its business almost entirely on the banana trade, because the coffee trade proved too difficult to control. The term \"banana republic\" has been applied to most countries inCentral America, but from a strict economic perspective only Costa Rica, Honduras, andPanamahad economies dominated by the banana trade.[citation needed]TheEuropean Unionhas traditionally imported many of its bananas from former EuropeanCaribbeancolonies, paying guaranteed prices above global market rates (seeLomé Convention). These arrangements have now been largely withdrawn under pressure from other major trading powers, principally theUnited States. The withdrawal of these indirect subsidies to Caribbean producers is expected to favour the more efficient banana producers of Central America, in which American companies have an economic interest. In addition, small-scale Caribbean producers are finding it difficult to comply with increasingly strict certification requirements. Some support is being provided to Caribbean countries under the EU\'s Banana Accompanying Measures (BAM).[74]The United States produces few bananas. A mere 14,000 tonnes (14,000 long tons; 15,000 short tons) were grown in Hawaii in 2001.[75]Bananas were once grown inFlorida[citation needed]and southern California.[76]In March 2014 it was announced that Fyffes and Chiquita would merge to create the world\'s largest banana company, worth about $1bn (£597m). The new firm, named ChiquitaFyffes, is expected to sell about 160 million boxes of bananas annually.[77]Pests, diseases, and natural disastersMain article:List of banana and plantain diseasesBanana bunches are sometimes encased in plastic bags for protection. The bags may be coated withpesticides.While in no danger of outright extinction, the most common edible banana cultivar Cavendish (extremely popular in Europe and the Americas) could become unviable for large-scale cultivation in the next 10–20 years. Its predecessor \'Gros Michel\', discovered in the 1820s, suffered this fate. Like almost all bananas, Cavendish lacks genetic diversity, which makes it vulnerable to diseases, threatening both commercial cultivation and small-scale subsistence farming.[78][79]Some commentators remarked that those variants which could replace what much of the world considers a \"typical banana\" are so different that most people would not consider them the same fruit, and blame the decline of the banana onmonogeneticcultivation driven by short-term commercial motives.[58]Panama diseasePanama diseaseis caused by afusariumsoilfungus(Race 1), which enters the plants through the roots and travels with water into the trunk and leaves, producinggelsand gums that cut off the flow of water and nutrients, causing the plant towilt, and exposing the rest of the plant to lethal amounts of sunlight. Prior to 1960, almost all commercial banana production centered on \"Gros Michel\", which was highly susceptible.[80]Cavendish was chosen as the replacement for Gros Michel because, among resistant cultivars, it produces the highest qualityfruit. However, more care is required for shipping the Cavendish, and its quality compared to Gros Michel is debated.[by whom?][citation needed]According to current sources, a deadly form of Panama disease is infecting Cavendish. All plants are genetically identical, which prevents evolution of disease resistance. Researchers are examining hundreds of wild varieties for resistance.[80]Tropical race 4Tropical race 4 (TR4) is a reinvigorated strain of Panama disease first discovered in 1993. This virulent form of fusarium wilt has wiped out Cavendish in several southeast Asian countries. It has yet to reach the Americas; however, soil fungi can easily be carried on boots, clothing, or tools. This is how TR4 travels and is its most likely route into Latin America. Cavendish is highly susceptible to TR4, and over time, Cavendish is almost certain to be eliminated from commercial production by this disease. The only known defense to TR4 is genetic resistance.[81]Black sigatokaBlack sigatokais a fungal leaf spot disease first observed inFijiin 1963 or 1964. Black Sigatoka (also known as black leaf streak) has spread to banana plantations throughout the tropics from infected banana leaves that were used as packing material. It affects all main cultivars of bananas and plantains (including the Cavendish cultivars[64]), impedingphotosynthesisby blackening parts of the leaves, eventually killing the entire leaf. Starved for energy, fruit production falls by 50% or more, and the bananas that do growripenprematurely, making them unsuitable for export. The fungus has shown ever-increasing resistance to treatment, with the current expense for treating 1 hectare (2.5 acres) exceeding$1,000 per year. In addition to the expense, there is the question of how long intensive spraying can be Environmentally justified. Several resistant cultivars of banana have been developed, but none has yet received commercial acceptance due to taste and texture issues.[citation needed]In East AfricaWith the arrival ofblack sigatoka, banana production in Eastern Africa fell by over 40%. For example, during the 1970s, Uganda produced 15 to 20 tonnes (15 to 20 long tons; 17 to 22 short tons) of bananas per hectare. Today, production has fallen to only 6 tonnes (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons) per hectare.[citation needed]The situation has started to improve as new disease-resistant cultivars have been developed by theInternational Institute of Tropical Agricultureand the National Agricultural Research Organisation of Uganda (NARO), such as FHIA-17 (known inUgandaas theKabana 3). These new cultivars taste different from the Cabana banana, which has slowed their acceptance by local farmers. However, by addingmulchandmanureto the soil around the base of the plant, these new cultivars have substantially increased yields in the areas where they have been tried.[citation needed]TheInternational Institute of Tropical Agricultureand NARO, funded by theRockefeller FoundationandCGIARhave started trials forgenetically modifiedbananas that are resistant to both Black sigatoka and banana weevils. It is developing cultivars specifically for smallholder and subsistence farmers.[citation needed]Banana bunchy top virusBanana bunchy top virus(BBTV) jumps from plant to plant usingaphids. It stunts leaves, resulting in a \"bunched\" appearance. Generally, an infected plant does not produce fruit, although mild strains exist which allow some production. These mild strains are often mistaken for malnourishment, or a disease other than BBTV. There is no cure; however, its effect can be minimized by planting onlytissue-cultured plants(in vitro propagation), controlling aphids, and immediately removing and destroying infected plants.[citation needed]Banana bacterial wiltBanana bacterial wilt(BBW) is a bacterial disease caused byXanthomonas campestrispv.musacearum.[82]After being originally identified on a close relative of bananas,Ensete ventricosum, inEthiopiain the 1960s,[83]BBW occurred in Uganda in 2001 affecting all banana cultivars. Since then BBW has been diagnosed in Central and East Africa including the banana growing regions ofRwanda, theDemocratic Republic of the Congo,Tanzania,Kenya,Burundi, andUganda.[84]NutritionBananas, raw (Daily Value)Nutritional value per 100g (3.5oz)Energy 371kJ (89kcal)Carbohydrates22.84 gSugars 12.23 gDietary fiber 2.6 gFat0.33 gProtein1.09 gVitaminsThiamine(B1) (3%)0.031 mgRiboflavin(B2) (6%)0.073 mgNiacin(B3) (4%)0.665 mgPantothenic acid(B5) (7%)0.334 mgVitamin B6 (31%)0.4 mgFolate(B9) (5%)20 μgCholine (2%)9.8 mgVitamin C (10%)8.7 mgMineralsIron (2%)0.26 mgMagnesium (8%)27 mgManganese (13%)0.27 mgPhosphorus (3%)22 mgPotassium (8%)358 mgSodium (0%)1 mgZinc (2%)0.15 mgOther constituentsWater 74.91 gFluoride 2.2 µgLink to USDA Database entryUnitsμg =micrograms• mg =milligramsIU =International unitsPercentages are roughly approximated usingUSrecommendationsfor adults.Source:USDA Nutrient DatabaseBananas are an excellent source ofvitamin B6and contain moderate amounts ofvitamin C,manganeseanddietary fiber(right table).[85]Although bananas are commonly thought to supply exceptionalpotassiumcontent,[86]their actual potassium content is relatively low per typical food serving at only 8% of theDaily Value(right table). A compilation of potassium content in common foods consumed in the United States shows that raw bananas rank 1,611th, supplying 358mg of potassium per 100 g; some foods with higher potassium content includebeans,milk,apricots,carrots, sweet greenbell peppersandpotatoes.[87]Banana ingestion may affectdopamineproduction in people deficient in theamino acidtyrosine, a dopamine precursor present in bananas.[88][89]Individuals with alatex allergymay experience a reaction to bananas.[90]Ripe bananas were found to and cookingSee also:Cooking plantainandList of banana dishesFruitBananas are a staplestarchfor manytropicalpopulations. Depending upon cultivar and ripeness, the flesh can vary in taste from starchy to sweet, and texture from firm to mushy. Both the skin and inner part can be eaten raw or cooked. The primary component of the aroma of fresh bananas isisoamyl acetate(also known asbanana oil), which, along with several other compounds such asbutyl acetateandisobutyl acetate, is a significant contributor to banana flavor.[92][93][94]During theripening process, bananas produce the gasethylene, which acts as aplant hormoneand indirectly affects the flavor. Among other things, ethylene stimulates the formation ofamylase, anenzymethat breaks down starch into sugar, influencing the taste of bananas. The greener, less ripe bananas contain higher levels of starch and, consequently, have a \"starchier\" taste. On the other hand, yellow bananas taste sweeter due to higher sugar concentrations. Furthermore, ethylene signals the production ofpectinase, an enzyme which breaks down thepectinbetween the cells of the banana, causing the banana to soften as it ripens.[95][96]Bananas are eaten deep fried, baked in their skin in a splitbamboo, or steamed inglutinous ricewrapped in a banana leaf. Bananas can be made intojam. Bananapancakesare popular amongstbackpackersand other travelers inSouth AsiaandSoutheast Asia. This has elicited the expressionBanana Pancake Trailfor those places inAsiathat cater to this group of travelers.Banana chipsare a snack produced from sliced dehydrated or fried banana or plantain, which have a dark brown color and an intense banana taste. Dried bananas are also ground to makebanana flour. Extracting juice is difficult, because when a banana is compressed, it simply turns to pulp. Bananas feature prominently inPhilippine cuisine, being part of traditional dishes and desserts likemaruya,turón, andhalo-haloorsaba con yelo. Most of these dishes use theSabaor Cardaba banana cultivar. Bananas are also commonly used in cuisine in the South-Indian state ofKerala, where they are steamed (puzhungiyathu), made into curries,[97]fried into chips (upperi)[98]or fried in batter (pazhampori).[99]Pisang goreng, bananas fried with batter similar to the Filipinomaruyaor Keralapazhampori, is a popular dessert inMalaysia,Singapore, andIndonesia. A similar dish is known in the United Kingdom and United States as bananafritters.Plantains are used in various stews and curries or cooked, baked or mashed in much the same way aspotatoes, such as thePazham Pachadiprepared inKerala.[97]Seeded bananas (Musa balbisiana), one of the forerunners of the common domesticated banana,[100]are sold in markets in Indonesia.[citation needed]FlowerBanana hearts are used as avegetable[101]inSouth AsianandSoutheast Asian cuisine, either raw or steamed with dips or cooked in soups, curries and fried foods.[102]The flavor resembles that ofartichoke. As with artichokes, both the fleshy part of the bracts and the heart are edible.[103]LeavesMain article:Banana leafBanana leaves are large, flexible, and waterproof. They are often used as ecologically friendly disposable food containers or as \"plates\" inSouth Asiaand severalSoutheast Asiancountries. InIndonesian cuisine, banana leaf is employed in cooking method calledpepesandbotok; the banana leaf packages containing food ingredients and spices are cooked on steam, in boiled water or grilled on charcoal. In the South Indian states ofTamil Nadu,Karnataka,Andhra PradeshandKeralain every occasion the food must be served in a banana leaf and as a part of the food a banana is served. Steamed with dishes they impart a subtle sweet flavor. They often serve as a wrapping for grilling food. The leaves contain the juices, protect food from burning and add a subtle flavor.[104]In Tamil Nadu (India) leaves are fully dried and used as packing material for food stuffs and also making cups to hold liquid foods. In Central American countries, banana leaves are often used as wrappers fortamales.[citation needed]TrunkThe tender core of the banana plant\'s trunk is also used inSouth AsianandSoutheast Asian cuisine, and notably in theBurmesedishmohinga.FiberTextilesThe banana plant has long been a source offiberfor high qualitytextiles. InJapan, banana cultivation for clothing and household use dates back to at least the 13th century. In the Japanese system, leaves and shoots are cut from the plant periodically to ensure softness. Harvested shoots are first boiled inlyeto prepare fibers foryarn-making. These banana shoots produce fibers of varying degrees of softness, yielding yarns and textiles with differing qualities for specific uses. For example, the outermost fibers of the shoots are the coarsest, and are suitable fortablecloths, while the softest innermost fibers are desirable forkimonoandkamishimo. This traditional Japanese cloth-making process requires many steps, all performed by hand.[105]In aNepalesesystem the trunk is harvested instead, and small pieces are subjected to a softening process, mechanical fiber extraction, bleaching and drying. After that, the fibers are sent to theKathmandu Valleyfor use inrugswith asilk-like texture. These banana fiber rugs are woven by traditional Nepalese hand-knotting methods, and are soldRugMark certified.[citation needed]In South Indian state ofTamil Naduafter harvesting for fruit the trunk (outer layer of the shoot) is made into fine thread used in making of flowergarlandsinstead of thread.[citation needed]PaperMain article:Banana paperBanana fiber is used in the production of banana paper. Banana paper is made from two different parts: thebarkof the banana plant, mainly used for artistic purposes, or from the fibers of the stem and non-usable fruits. The paper is either hand-made or by industrial process.Cultural rolesCoconut, banana and banana leaves used while worshipingRiver KaveriatTiruchirappalli,India.Banana flowers and leaves for sale in the Thanin market inChiang Mai,Thailand.ArtsThe song \"Yes! We Have No Bananas\" was written byFrank SilverandIrving Cohnand originally released in 1923; for many decades, it was the best-sellingsheet musicin history. Since then the song has been rerecorded several times and has been particularly popular during banana shortages.[106][107]A person slipping on abanana peelhas been a staple ofphysical comedyfor generations. An American comedy recording from 1910 features a popular character of the time, \"Uncle Josh\", claiming to describe his own such incident:[108]Now I don\'t think much of the man that throws a banana peelin\' on the sidewalk, and I don\'t think much of the banana peel that throws a man on the sidewalk neither ... my foot hit the bananer peelin\' and I went up in the air, and I come down ker-plunk, jist as I was pickin\' myself up a little boy come runnin\' across the street ... he says, \"Oh mister, won\'t you please do that agin? My little brother didn\'t see you do it.\"The poetBashōis named after the Japanese word for a banana plant. The \"bashō\" planted in his garden by a grateful student became a source of inspiration to his poetry, as well as a symbol of his life and home.[109]The cover artwork forthe debut albumofThe Velvet Undergroundfeatures a banana made byAndy Warhol. On the original vinyl LP version, the design allowed the listener to \"peel\" this banana to find a pink, peeled phallic banana on the inside.[110]Religion and popular beliefsNang Tani, the femaleghostof Thai folklore that haunts banana plantsInBurma, bunches of green bananas surrounding a greencoconutin a tray form an important part of traditional offerings to theBuddhaand theNats.[citation needed]In all the important festivals and occasions ofHindus, the serving of bananas plays a prominent part. Traditionally inTamilmarriages, banana plants are tied on both sides of the entrance of houses to bless the newlyweds to be useful to each other.[citation needed]The banana is one of three fruits with this significance, the others beingmangoandjack fruit.[citation needed]InThailand, it is believed thata certain typeof banana plants may be inhabited by aspirit,Nang Tani, a type of ghost related to trees and similar plants that manifests itself as a young woman.[111]Often people tie a length of colored satin cloth around the pseudostem of the banana plants.[112]InMalay folklore, the ghost known asPontianakis associated with banana plants (pokok pisang), and its spirit is said to reside in them during the day.[113]UnicodeTheUnicodestandard includes usesThe large leaves may be used asumbrellas.[104]Banana peelmay have capability to extractheavy metalcontaminationfrom river water, similar to otherpurificationmaterials.[115][116]In 2007, banana peel powder was tested as a means of filtration for heavy metals andradionuclidesoccurring in water produced by the nuclear and fertilizer industries (cadmium contaminant is present in phosphates). When added and thoroughly mixed for 40 minutes, the powder can remove roughly 65% of heavy metals, and this can be repeated.


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