movement. For the moment, we just have to wait and see how poisonous our chips
for environmentalists. wheat maize. Although there are different varieties, all edible bananas
The recent news that the main strain of banana eaten by human
is under threat of extinction from fungal disease poses interesting questions
90% of the world's bananas are grown as a staple by smallholders, and it is the fourth most important food crop after rice,
and using This is on plantation workers of the huge amounts of chemicals (up to 40 sprayings a year) used on commercial crops.
Organic farmers are compelled to accept far lower yields, or to grow less palatable varieties, as is done in Cuba.
Now one fungus has developed resistance to these chemicals and it is claimed that edible bananas and plantains may disappear in ten years. Because the plant is sterile, the most promising way of getting a disease resistant gene into it is by GM
A fungal-resistant, wild, but inedible variety would be found and the genes) for resistance spliced into the edible varieties
Two main arguments are advanced against GM crops. One is that they will give
increased trol to large multinational corporations. The second is that they wil lead to a loss of genetic diversity and will place the crops in greater danger from disense Greenpeace and other organisations rightly trash GM agriculture "experi ments" which aim to complete monocultures under agribusiness control, while threatening to contaminate non-GM crops.
Edible bananas are already practically a monoculture and the multinationals are showing no interest in the current programme to improve banana by Perhaps this is one case where blanket opposition to GM agriculture could be counterproductive