The King and His Banana

Today I ate my first banana in eight months. I felt like a king. Here in Australia we used to enjoy inexpensive, healthy bananas on a regular basis, but Cyclone Larry changed all that. Cyclone Larry sounds like a friendly kids birthday party clown, but it was actually a horrifically destructive storm that hit Queensland (North-east Australia) early last year.


Cyclone Larry
95% of Australia's banana plantations were destroyed by Cyclone Larry. Needless to say, the cash crop for many farmers was no more. Australia, in a long-standing effort to prevent foreign diseases and insects, does not import bananas, so this particular produce was essentially unavailable to the people for quite some time. Bananas started to show up on the market - for about $14/kilo (about $6/Pound) - but these were small and bruised. Some did purchase them to support the farmers but the quality was not the same as those old Aussie bananas, so sales were low even for what little was produced.

So city-dwelling Australians felt the impact of Cyclone Larry "at the grocery store." I felt like a king when I ate my banana today, but the bulk of the farmers in Queensland are still struggling to get by. Even after the crops have recovered, the infrastructure will need many more years to recover. A sick clown has destroyed the livelihood for many people.


The Drought
The farmers in Queensland are still reeling from the effects of Cyclone Larry, and farmers all over Australia are reeling from the worst drought in Australian history. Even before spring is over, plans are being made to cart water into entire cities. Can you imagine living in a city of hundreds of thousands of people and running out of water? And these people wash, scrub and rinse the dishes all in the same water! And shave and brush their teeth in that water too! OK, maybe not really that last part. Or maybe they do now.

The drought is bad and the resulting bushfires may be even worse. The photo above is of the currently burning Blue Mountains - just an hour or two out of Syndey. As I write this in the centre of Syndey I can smell those fires.