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The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

nationalgeographic.com

61–70 of 193 posts

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#61
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly would an apple "randomly" acquire a jellyfish gene?

The same way that fish eventually acquired the "lungs" genes.

//The same way that fish eventually acquired the "lungs" genes.

Which took a million years. But now watch out - we can do it in 4 hours. That's the difference.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#64
post #48
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to have GMO big mikes =(

I've always wanted to try a Big Mike

Atlas Obscura had an article in which they ordered a box of Big Mikes from the Miami Fruit Company. It's a little on the pricy side to ship boxes of boutique fruits across the country, but they have quite an interesting selection.

If I was in your shoes, I might wait for Big Mikes to be in season, then order the banana variety pack[1] (and ask that they include a Big Mike). You could pre-order a large box (10-14lbs) of Big Mikes[2], but that seems like a lot to buy at once.

I've never heard of these folks before today, but now I kind of want to throw a fruit tasting party.

[1]: https://miamifruit.org/collections/fresh-and-dried/products/... [2]: https://miamifruit.org/collections/banana-pre-orders/product...

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#65
post #36
post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

I'm pretty up to date on the science myself, and I still consider myself anti-GMO for a host of reasons, little to do with the science. My objections are more philosophical. two primary reasons: hubris and greed. The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best. We may go all in on one species or variant and then turns out an unknown bacteria we have previously no clue about w…

My biggest concern is similar, that a GMO banana is intellectual property and I detest the thought of large companies preventing people from growing their own food.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best. If they don't grow GMO Cavendish, they will pick some other variety and grow that everywhere, like they did after the Gros Michel went under. GMO doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for monoculture at all. > the power of being able to still survive on pure nature's means We haven't been able to do that since the dawn of agricul…

Many of us that are considered anti gmo are more anti patent for food genes rather than of anti gmo. The developing world mostly has agricultural economy now Western companies are trying to horn in that as well. A few years ago an American company tried to patent and stop Pakistan and India from selling a rice variety called Basmati by modifing it genes and trying to patent it. When its come to gmo the trust deficit…

Then don't call yourselves anti-GMO?

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#67
post #28

> Other scientists—most notably, James Dale of the Queensland University of Technology in Australia—are testing genetically modified disease-resistant Cavendish bananas, but public acceptance of GMOs could prove a significant obstacle to their widespread adoption. This is the problem right here. The lack of science education. A banana modified in a lab and one that is bred through selective breeding are both "GMO", i…

While I agree that people should rely on science when determining the safety of food products, it's disingenuous to imply that selective breeding and GMO are the same thing, as it ignores the fact that many if not most GMO foods are transgenic with genes from other species and even kingdoms of life that would never find their way into the genome through selective breeding.

And what is wrong with that? You think acid in your stomach performs DNA-analysis?

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the idea of selective breeding but GMO is more than that. It's very possible to move genes from very different organisms that would never be possible via selective breeding. The ones that come to mind are the glow in the dark organisms that used genes from 2 different types of animals that could never breed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCPtDVnaQ1w So no GMO does not equal selective breeding.

One alternative to GMO is to irradiate your organism until it randomly develops a mutation you like. It's not "GMO" and isn't labeled as such, because it doesn't involve the same technical steps as inserting a fish gene into a tomato, or whatever, but you end up with an organism with de novo mutations that do... well, something , probably many things, and if you're lucky, something you want, that you can then use sel…

I think one thing people are worried about is simply unintended consequences.

Humans have always had confidence of mastery over nature and more often than not we screw it up.

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#69
post #8

I find it weird that people would not like other variety of bananas. Like there are generally more than one type of apples, potatoes, onions, tomotoes, and lettuce at most grocery stores. I would like the choice.

There’s so much variety - just not in US supermarkets

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20888103

Re: The fungus that devastates the Cavendish banana has now arrived in Latin America

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hubris to think we know which varietals are the best and will continue to be the best. If they don't grow GMO Cavendish, they will pick some other variety and grow that everywhere, like they did after the Gros Michel went under. GMO doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for monoculture at all. > the power of being able to still survive on pure nature's means We haven't been able to do that since the dawn of agricul…

Many of us that are considered anti gmo are more anti patent for food genes rather than of anti gmo. The developing world mostly has agricultural economy now Western companies are trying to horn in that as well. A few years ago an American company tried to patent and stop Pakistan and India from selling a rice variety called Basmati by modifing it genes and trying to patent it. When its come to gmo the trust deficit…

Literally all of the problems you mentioned existed before GMO was a thing. Companies have been patenting varietals since the 1930's. Patent trolling in agriculture is also quite old. E.g. the yellow bean patent debacle:

https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080507/full/453145b.html

GMO is tangentially related but few of the biggest overreaches in agricultural IP are directly tied to them.

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