ProMusa is dedicated to improving the understanding of banana,1 an atypical crop about which misconceptions abound. They not only turn up in news stories on the extinction of the banana but also in scientific publications.

This is to be expected given that scientific knowledge is provisional and needs to be updated when new evidence comes to light, improved analytical methods are developed and better explanations are proposed. The latter sometimes happen because, being human, scientists are not immune to interpreting results in a way that confirm their beliefs or to make claims that are not supported by the evidence. Fashionable ideas—which Norman Simmonds, one of the pioneers of banana research, called bandwagons—are also problematic when they crowd out different ways of approaching a problem and demand uncritical adherence. 

ProMusa's mission is to inform discussions on banana by critically examining the knowledge on this atypical crop and making it accessible and understandable.

This is done through the ProMusa website, which is built around two interlinked sections that examine evidence and put research findings in context:

ProMusa also maintains two databases: Musalit, a repository of references on banana and Musarama, an image bank on banana.

ProMusa is present on Twitter.

1 The word banana is used throughout the website to refer to all types of bananas, whether they are eaten raw or cooked. We do not oppose the words banana and plantain or use the latter to refer to cooking bananas in general. Plantain with a capital P refers to a specific type of banana that is traditionally cooked.