5 ms·

This is real scary. One genetic flaw exploited by say a virus could wipe out the entire dairy industry.

LennyWhiteJr 7y ago
Wait till you find out that all the world's cash crops are essentially genetic clones of each other. We're literally one superbug away from global famine.
- baroffoos 7y ago
  I doubt its that dire. There are a lot of things currently that can destroy crops but they are mostly prevented from spreading by border controls on things like fruit not being able to cross over.
  - CameronNemo 7y ago
    Nobody will obey customs in the event of a famine. Have you been on the dark web?
    - slimed 7y ago
      I assume you're joking? USPS operates through rain, sleet, snow, etc, but not famine.
    - baroffoos 7y ago
      There will be no famine as a result of a single type of crop in a local area getting killed. It still takes at least weeks for the virus to spread around to other crops which is plenty of time to become aware of it and stop its spread. There is also nothing preventing imports of healthy foods over the border. There is also no real incentive to bring bad crops over the border to a safe area.
      - onion2k 7y ago
        Assuming it's spread naturally of course. If it was a deliberate attack it wouldn't be quite so straightforward.
        malka 7y ago
        Fortunately the subset of People that are chaotic, bad, smart, and organized enought to pull this though is emptt
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        That's an extremely naive attitude. No famine looks that serious until it is already too late.
  - pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
    Tell that to every single chestnut tree doomed to be the last of its kind.
  - liability 7y ago
    You're correct. Rice and corn are almost tied as staple crops. Wheat, potatoes and bananas trail those two relatively closely. There may be little genetic diversity inside any particular staple food, but there are nevertheless several unrelated staple foods that feed the world. If blight were to wipe out one or two, things would get bad but I'm confident we'd pull through as a species.
- slimed 7y ago
  Yes, biodiversity in major crops is a serious problem. Global famine? Give me a break. That would require the failure of multiple crop species extending across thousands of miles. It's never happened in human history on that scale. Why would it now? Yes, losing all the Cavendish bananas would be really bad. But why would a superbug that takes out all the bananas have any effect on the corn, wheat, etc growing down the road? The biodiversity issue is intraspecies not interspecies.
  - topmonk 7y ago
    > But why would a superbug that takes out all the bananas have any effect on the corn, wheat, etc growing down the road? Simply, copies. If a superbug is able to destroy all the world's bananas, it would grow in population 1 million fold to do so. A bacteria or virus with a million times as many members will evolve a million times as quickly. Given such, a species jump wouldn't be hard to do. And after the first couple, the superbug would likely start to tailer itself to genes that many plant species share, making the next jumps even easier.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      I suppose I should be sitting up in terror for the superbug that comes after us from ants, then? After all ants outmass humans worldwide by a decent margin... Thing is, I'm pretty sure that ants and humans are only a few times further apart than potatoes and corn are. (Monocots and Dicots split ~140-150 Myr ago [0], Arthropoda and Chordata about ~1000 Myr ago [1]) (I initially thought the Monocots/Dicots split was further back... looks like a closer comparison would be to marsupials, diverging ~170 Myr ago) 0: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15114421 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15114421 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097391 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097391
      - topmonk 7y ago
        What does the number of ants vs humans have to do with the population of a species ballooning 1 million times its original size?
- elmar 7y ago
  Bananas are a good example they are all clones, 95% of banana exports come from a single cultivated variety, the Cavendish.
  - tda 7y ago
    Especially because before 1950 the Gros Michel was about as popular as the Cavendish now. And then it got wiped out by a fungus so instead of diversifying, all banana plantations collectively switched to Cavendish. Now there is a new fungus the Cavendish is susceptible too, so perhaps in a few years we'll all be eating something else. Hopefully more than a single alternative variety is found this time... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana: "After years of attempting to keep it out of the Americas, in mid-2019, Panama disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4), was discovered on banana farms in the coastal Caribbean region. With no fungicide effective against TR4, the Cavendish may meet the same fate as the Gros Michel."
jcampbell1 7y ago
The veterinary science in the corporate meat/dairy business is better at disease management than the CDC. Vaccines are developed in a matter of weeks. Quarantining animals and employees is completely enforced. Culling is possible. I wouldn’t be scared. A lot of smart people are going to make sure you have real ice cream. Do you worry that some disease is going to kill off all the elite marathon runners? Not much genetic diversity there either. Genetic diversity just isn’t that important for survival with modern medicine.
- baroffoos 7y ago
  Pretty much. The one tool that is available to farmers is the fact that they can just kill huge amounts of animals to wipe out an illness quickly.
  - ci5er 7y ago
    That tool is available at policy-level to other species too; they just don't like to talk about it.
- beambot 7y ago
  So... How do account for the swine problem in Asia? Disease can still have tremendous global impact.
  - jcampbell1 7y ago
    About 2/3rds of China’s pork production is not modern. Too many humans involved and they roll out vaccines in 6 months rather than 3 weeks. For now it is just slow and uncoordinated problem solving.
    - beambot 7y ago
      Right. Everything you said about food supply resiliency only applies to modern production in the US. To be fair: that's the topic of the article. But it is inapplicable to 2/3rds of the world's population -- where disease & monoculture are huge threats to global food supply.

Wait till you find out that all the world's cash crops are essentially genetic clones of each other. We're literally one superbug away from global famine.

baroffoos 7y ago
I doubt its that dire. There are a lot of things currently that can destroy crops but they are mostly prevented from spreading by border controls on things like fruit not being able to cross over.
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  Nobody will obey customs in the event of a famine. Have you been on the dark web?
  - slimed 7y ago
    I assume you're joking? USPS operates through rain, sleet, snow, etc, but not famine.
  - baroffoos 7y ago
    There will be no famine as a result of a single type of crop in a local area getting killed. It still takes at least weeks for the virus to spread around to other crops which is plenty of time to become aware of it and stop its spread. There is also nothing preventing imports of healthy foods over the border. There is also no real incentive to bring bad crops over the border to a safe area.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      Assuming it's spread naturally of course. If it was a deliberate attack it wouldn't be quite so straightforward.
      - malka 7y ago
        Fortunately the subset of People that are chaotic, bad, smart, and organized enought to pull this though is emptt
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      That's an extremely naive attitude. No famine looks that serious until it is already too late.
- pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
  Tell that to every single chestnut tree doomed to be the last of its kind.
- liability 7y ago
  You're correct. Rice and corn are almost tied as staple crops. Wheat, potatoes and bananas trail those two relatively closely. There may be little genetic diversity inside any particular staple food, but there are nevertheless several unrelated staple foods that feed the world. If blight were to wipe out one or two, things would get bad but I'm confident we'd pull through as a species.
slimed 7y ago
Yes, biodiversity in major crops is a serious problem. Global famine? Give me a break. That would require the failure of multiple crop species extending across thousands of miles. It's never happened in human history on that scale. Why would it now? Yes, losing all the Cavendish bananas would be really bad. But why would a superbug that takes out all the bananas have any effect on the corn, wheat, etc growing down the road? The biodiversity issue is intraspecies not interspecies.
- topmonk 7y ago
  > But why would a superbug that takes out all the bananas have any effect on the corn, wheat, etc growing down the road? Simply, copies. If a superbug is able to destroy all the world's bananas, it would grow in population 1 million fold to do so. A bacteria or virus with a million times as many members will evolve a million times as quickly. Given such, a species jump wouldn't be hard to do. And after the first couple, the superbug would likely start to tailer itself to genes that many plant species share, making the next jumps even easier.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    I suppose I should be sitting up in terror for the superbug that comes after us from ants, then? After all ants outmass humans worldwide by a decent margin... Thing is, I'm pretty sure that ants and humans are only a few times further apart than potatoes and corn are. (Monocots and Dicots split ~140-150 Myr ago [0], Arthropoda and Chordata about ~1000 Myr ago [1]) (I initially thought the Monocots/Dicots split was further back... looks like a closer comparison would be to marsupials, diverging ~170 Myr ago) 0: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15114421 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15114421 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097391 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097391
    - topmonk 7y ago
      What does the number of ants vs humans have to do with the population of a species ballooning 1 million times its original size?
elmar 7y ago
Bananas are a good example they are all clones, 95% of banana exports come from a single cultivated variety, the Cavendish.
- tda 7y ago
  Especially because before 1950 the Gros Michel was about as popular as the Cavendish now. And then it got wiped out by a fungus so instead of diversifying, all banana plantations collectively switched to Cavendish. Now there is a new fungus the Cavendish is susceptible too, so perhaps in a few years we'll all be eating something else. Hopefully more than a single alternative variety is found this time... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_banana: "After years of attempting to keep it out of the Americas, in mid-2019, Panama disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4), was discovered on banana farms in the coastal Caribbean region. With no fungicide effective against TR4, the Cavendish may meet the same fate as the Gros Michel."

jcampbell1 7y ago

The veterinary science in the corporate meat/dairy business is better at disease management than the CDC. Vaccines are developed in a matter of weeks. Quarantining animals and employees is completely enforced. Culling is possible. I wouldn’t be scared. A lot of smart people are going to make sure you have real ice cream. Do you worry that some disease is going to kill off all the elite marathon runners? Not much genetic diversity there either. Genetic diversity just isn’t that important for survival with modern medicine.

baroffoos 7y ago
Pretty much. The one tool that is available to farmers is the fact that they can just kill huge amounts of animals to wipe out an illness quickly.
- ci5er 7y ago
  That tool is available at policy-level to other species too; they just don't like to talk about it.
beambot 7y ago
So... How do account for the swine problem in Asia? Disease can still have tremendous global impact.
- jcampbell1 7y ago
  About 2/3rds of China’s pork production is not modern. Too many humans involved and they roll out vaccines in 6 months rather than 3 weeks. For now it is just slow and uncoordinated problem solving.
  - beambot 7y ago
    Right. Everything you said about food supply resiliency only applies to modern production in the US. To be fair: that's the topic of the article. But it is inapplicable to 2/3rds of the world's population -- where disease & monoculture are huge threats to global food supply.