-
- Source: Seattle Times
Bananas are becoming slowly eradicated through disease, over cultivated lands, and a greater dependence upon chemical usage. It is the simplest of fruits with the heaviest responsibility of feeding hundreds of millions of people around the world, whose existence depends on the banana over more common staples such as potatoes or rice. Today, the most commonly eaten banana available in U.S. stores is called the Cavendish. But the original type of banana Americans ate was called Gros Michel- hardier skin, better tasting, and sweeter. This banana survived only fifty years through 1960 due to the discovery of Panama Disease. How did bananas manage to come back? This becomes even more amazing upon learning of the fruit’s unique plight: bananas are sexless. Every banana is identical to the other, and makes for unbelievable challenges to create a new banana resistant to disease. It is only through biotechnology that bananas have been sustained this long, and remains their only chance for survival. The very solution, and only solution, ensuring bananas survival is the one Westernized society is collectively against employing, that is genetic modification methods. Nature is so cruel!
