Interesting Facts

The Cavendish variety of banana accounts for 95 per cent of bananas shipped to export markets around the world. (That's interesting in itself, but the biggest nightmare of a monoculture has arisen, and the world’s banana crop is under threat from a fungus; Foc-TR4. According to Nature, a strain of Foc wiped out the Gros Michel cultivar, which was the main exported banana variety until the 1950s. Gros Michel plants were then replaced with the Cavendish variety, which is resistant to that Foc strain, but susceptible to the new Foc Tropical Race 4 (Foc-TR4) strain. The disappearance of bananas from supermarket shelves in the UK is one thing, but bananas form a crucial part of the diet of more than 400 million people.)

Australia's wine exports amount to some 2.8 billion Australian dollars each year. (Their main markets are the United States and Britain. Hic!)

According to the Economist, the world's largest exporter is Germany. (Yes, Germany, not China and not the US. Although China was predicted to overtake both the US and Germany by 2010, the global recession might put paid to that.)

According to the Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), France exports 150.9m bottles of champagne per year. (The main importers are the UK: 38.9m bottles, the US: 21.7m bottles, Japan: 9.1m bottles, Russia: 1.03m bottles, and China: 656,000 bottles. Of course in the UK we have a saying, "Champagne taste on a beer pocket.")

According to Statistics Canada, Canada's exports to China almost doubled between 2002 and 2006. (Exports now stand at around Can $8 billion. But that is just a drop in the ocean, it actually makes up only 1.3% of China's total imports.)