Original Post
According to a former senior biologist for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, bananas are facing extinction because centuries of genetic manipulation by human beings have left them vulnerable to disease. Biologist Robert Alison further argues that the impending demise of bananas should serve as a wake up call to the dangers of genetically modifying food plants. Yes, we''ll have no bananas
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quote:One of the arguments in defense of GM food is that we have been modifying the genes of food crops for centuries and that the main difference with todays efforts is that we can do it so much more efficiently now. How does the banana example change the validity of that argument? Will agricultural science save the day again or will the banana go the way of the dodo? I don''t know about you, but I like bananas and would hate to see them vanish in this fashion. (And no that''s not a banana in my pants
... The banana''s main problem is that it has become sterile and seedless as a result of 10,000 years of selective breeding. It has, over time, become a plant with unvarying genetic sameness. The genetic diversity needed to cope with environmental stresses, such as diseases and crop pests, has long ago been bred out of the banana. Consequently, the banana plantations of the world are completely vulnerable to devastating environmental pressures. ... Then Panama disease, a soil fungus, attacked banana plantations and the genetically enfeebled Gros Michel banana was virtually wiped out. By 1960, the Gros Michel was no longer a viable crop. Tireless agricultural research eventually produced a successor, the Cavendish. For the past 40 years or so, the Cavendish has been virtually the only commercially grown stock available on store shelves in developed nations. ... But like its genetic predecessor, the Cavendish is also sterile, equally unprotected from diseases and crop pests. And now a powerful plant pathogen, the Black Sigatoka fungus, has appeared on the scene, attacking the Cavendish stock around the world. Banana yields have already dropped by 50-70 per cent, and banana-tree life spans have been reduced from about 30 years to just about two years. The genetic uniformity among Cavendish bananas has made them helpless to fight Black Sigatoka. ... The selective plant breeding that has brought us to this impasse is comparable to genetic engineering. Both change the genetic makeup of a plant, perhaps irreversibly. So the case of the banana gives ammunition to critics of genetic engineering and to their claim that much can go wrong when we tamper with plant genetics. Such warnings aren''t new. In 1995, biologists warned that changing the genetic makeup of a plant is like playing with fire. Even so, genetic alteration continues. At Oregon State University, scientists are at work on generating sterility in poplar trees; the Canadian Forest Service is looking into breeding insect resistance in white spruces; at the University of California, work is being done on changing root systems in walnut trees. And at the Independent University in Madrid, orange trees are being modified to promote early fruit-bearing and to grow oranges that are easier to peel. ... The disappearance of the banana should be a wakeup call -- to what can result from reckless genetic manipulation, complacency and inattention. If this can happen to the world''s most popular fruit with all humanity as its witness, imagine what could happen to more obscure, but no less useful plants whose fates are less publicized and open to public scrutiny.
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