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The inconvenience of having to switch to a new type of banana or coffee every few decades is barely significant in my view. I don't see why we won't always be a

The inconvenience of having to switch to a new type of banana or coffee every few decades is barely significant in my view. I don't see why we won't always be able to replace the popular varieties that are wiped out by diseases. Seed banks have been a thing for a very long time.

twoodfin 10y ago
Agree. And if financial markets are working properly, the risk of disaster should be priced in, affecting the cost of raising capital for growers and giving them an incentive to plan alternatives.
- scj 10y ago
  There should be two incentives. One is the monoculture risk mentioned earlier. The second is that a viable alternative might be developed that is more appealing than the current product.
- munificent 10y ago
  > if financial markets are working properly What makes you assume they do?
andrewla 10y ago
My understanding is that flavor is only part of the equation here. The more important thing in a lot of cases is yield of fruit -- most plants that evolved naturally will not produce the amount of fruit needed for agriculture, just because that's a huge waste of energy. You find varieties that do produce an abundance of fruit, and those are the ones that you start cultivating. Given that constraint, there aren't a lot of ways to jump; very few high-yield banana varieties are available, and none of them really sweet except for the Dwarf Cavendish and Grand Nain cultivars. Agricultural researchers are constantly trying to grow new bananas from seed (which is the easiest way to pursue genetic diversity) but I'm not aware of any new sweet and productive cultivars that have arisen in recent times.
justinator 10y ago
Well, when's the last time you peeled a banana and where confronted with a mass of unpalatable seeds? We eat a specific mutated banana from a plant that can only be cloned to get more banana plants. This isn't out of the ordinary from things we eat. Take the navel orange, or seedless almost anything; lots of different types of apples aren't grown from seed anymore - a cutting is made from a tree, and attached to a different species of apple tree.
- Cerium 10y ago
  Of course cloning is not the only way to make seedless fruit. Watermelons are made seedless by taking a triploid variety pollinated by a diploid variety. They are not comparable and produce sterile fruits with soft white seeds.

twoodfin 10y ago

Agree. And if financial markets are working properly, the risk of disaster should be priced in, affecting the cost of raising capital for growers and giving them an incentive to plan alternatives.

scj 10y ago
There should be two incentives. One is the monoculture risk mentioned earlier. The second is that a viable alternative might be developed that is more appealing than the current product.
munificent 10y ago
> if financial markets are working properly What makes you assume they do?

andrewla 10y ago

My understanding is that flavor is only part of the equation here. The more important thing in a lot of cases is yield of fruit -- most plants that evolved naturally will not produce the amount of fruit needed for agriculture, just because that's a huge waste of energy. You find varieties that do produce an abundance of fruit, and those are the ones that you start cultivating. Given that constraint, there aren't a lot of ways to jump; very few high-yield banana varieties are available, and none of them really sweet except for the Dwarf Cavendish and Grand Nain cultivars. Agricultural researchers are constantly trying to grow new bananas from seed (which is the easiest way to pursue genetic diversity) but I'm not aware of any new sweet and productive cultivars that have arisen in recent times.

justinator 10y ago

Well, when's the last time you peeled a banana and where confronted with a mass of unpalatable seeds? We eat a specific mutated banana from a plant that can only be cloned to get more banana plants. This isn't out of the ordinary from things we eat. Take the navel orange, or seedless almost anything; lots of different types of apples aren't grown from seed anymore - a cutting is made from a tree, and attached to a different species of apple tree.

Cerium 10y ago
Of course cloning is not the only way to make seedless fruit. Watermelons are made seedless by taking a triploid variety pollinated by a diploid variety. They are not comparable and produce sterile fruits with soft white seeds.