Yes, We May Have No Bananas (Or, Perhaps, Anything Else)?

Dan Saladino suggests the food industry's obsessive use monocultures is actually dangerous (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/22/1000-varieties-banana-lack-of-diversity-extinction). He points to the example of the ubiquitous banana. Bananas are one of the cheapest fruit one can find in a supermarket. There are over 1,000 varieties of banana. Most that are sold, however, are from a single strain. This, the Cavendish variety, is propagated, not by seed, but by planting sections of tuber. This means virtually all banana plants, are clones. Panama disease is a fungal infection, producing 'wilt', killing the Cavendish strain. Work is underway, using gene editing, in an attempt to make the Cavendish variety more resistant to Panama infection. It's, however, obvious it would be better 'not to put all our eggs in one basket'. Getting folk to eat more varieties of basic crops, like bananas, would a) reduce the use of monocultures; b) retain more of the genetic variability evident in 'ancient' or unusual varieties and c) make it less likely changes in the environment or a disease, would wipe out crops. Clearly, the same considerations apply to crops like coffee; wheat and many of the world's pulses. Variety is the spice of life!