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And the claim that this is some sort of historical anomaly is a bit misleading. Palatable apples, for example, cannot be reliably grown from seed. (Which was wh
by samirillian 10y ago
And the claim that this is some sort of historical anomaly is a bit misleading. Palatable apples, for example, cannot be reliably grown from seed. (Which was why all Johnny Appleseed's seeds were for hard cider)
But yeah, if you've had even one really good banana (I had a few in Rwanda), you know how inferior the flavor of the Cavendish is.
- ska 10y agoMuch of industrial agriculture has, for presumably straightforward economic reasons, been focused around product that either produce more something (even if that's mostly water) per unit effort, or store and ship much better. Optimizing for these things has been far more successful than flavor or nutritional content.
- adrianN 10y agoI'm pretty sure that modern cultivars of staple crops like corn, wheat, rice, and potatoes produce more calories per hectare than heirloom variants. Not everything gets optimized for water content and shelf-life.
- ska 10y agoI wasn't claiming only water content, nor limiting to staples. cf modern strawberries. I should have put appearance on the list too. In other words I meant that there is some feature(s) of value in the market (size, uniformity, color, cost/kg to produce, storage, shipability, yield) that trump flavor, nutritional content, sustainability for that market. So we shouldn't be surprised when those don't "win". That said, as I understand it (could easily be wrong) some modern cultivars don't really optimize yield, but labor. I suspect the math works out differently for different crops.
- marcosdumay 10y agoYet agriculture research has also tried to (and succeed in) carry a lot of diversity from pre-industrial into industrial agriculture. The market will reward more things than yeld, just not in "take over the world" scales.