Australia’s first genetically modified fruit is ripe for a taste test. Could it avert a global banana apocalypse?

Farmer Kurt Lindsay says a devastating tropical disease could permanently wipe out his banana crop – but a genetically-modified variant provides some hope. Photograph: Dan Peled/The Guardian

When two biotechnologists fly from Brisbane to Darwin on Saturday, they will drive the Kakadu road to Humpty Doo and eat what has the potential to become one of the more consequential mouthfuls of banana in the history of the planet’s most popular fruit.

Whoever bites first will not only become the first person to taste a genetically modified fruit grown in Australia, they shall have the first taste of the first GM banana approved for commercial production anywhere in the world.