LET鈥橲 hear it for the banana. Easy to peel and low in fat, its flesh is a
good source of vitamins C and A and can be eaten fried, mashed or chilled, with
ice cream or in muffins. No wonder it鈥檚 the world鈥檚 most popular fruit with
global sales of 拢5 billion a year.
Bananas cause trade wars and bankroll dictators. They are the lifeblood of
Caribbean and Central American economies. Above all, they sustain lives. In
parts of Africa, bananas provide one-quarter of all calories for subsistence
farmers. Now the yellow berry is to become the first fruit to have its entire
genome sequenced
(see 鈥淏anana bonanza鈥�).
Should we be pleased or alarmed?
The aim is to trace genes that could be added to bananas to improve them. And
the usual objections to genetic engineering don鈥檛 apply. Half the world鈥檚 edible
banana varieties are sterile. This means they can only be propagated with
cuttings so there鈥檚 no chance of any newly introduced genes escaping into wild
relatives or weeds.
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What鈥檚 more, in stark contrast to existing GM crops, there is a pressing and
undeniable need to find new ways to improve bananas. Soybeans and maize were
engineered largely to make life easier for industrial-scale farmers and increase
the profits of the of the world鈥檚 Monsantos. Bananas, though, really are highly
vulnerable to pests and disease because of their reproductive shortcomings.
Every year subsistence farmers risk complete crop failure, while commercial
growers spray thousands of tonnes of toxic chemicals over their plantations and
often their workers.
Like it or not, genetic engineering might offer the only hope for a much
hardier and environment-friendly banana. 快猫短视频s are right to push for a
publicly funded project to sequence its genome that can get cheap GM varieties
to the poor subsistence grower.
But they must also be realistic. In the present climate small farmers and
consumers alike would spurn such varieties. And the technology could create
problems as well as solve them鈥攅specially on the big commercial
plantations run by multinational companies in places like Central America.
Despite pressure for change, conditions for many plantation workers are still
appalling鈥�14-hour days, pittance wages and exposure to pesticides that can
harm fertility. The bananas they produce continue to undercut those from smaller
growers, creating a downward price trend that benefits nobody but the
supermarket chains and their shareholders. A GM super-banana that needed no
spraying would spare workers a regular dose of chemicals. But it might also put
them out of a job.
This does not make sequencing the banana wrong. In fact, it makes it urgent.
If today鈥檚 public consortium does not do the job you can bet that one day the
private sector will. Then there would be no way to curb excessive job losses. A
public effort can at least license its GM banana varieties only to those who
will grow them responsibly. For once the public sector is in the driving seat,
not big business. The banana genome pioneers should make the most of it.
