Battles Banana-Wielding Thug.
In my book, I note that one observer described the banana as a “weapon of conquest” in Latin America. This doesn’t apply in Maryland, where a would-be thief attempted to use the fruit to rob a 7-Eleven – and was denied by a brave clerk.
Incredibly (or maybe not so incredibly), this isn’t the first time this has happened – and the last time, the guy got eighteen months in the hoosegow for his malfeasance (third item down.)
A bigger threat to the banana than any disease. The world’s favorite fruit is the cheapest and healthiest alternative to junk food. So what would the junk food industry do?
This:
Gotta go try one.
The most controversial part of my book is my assertion that biotech is key to saving the banana. I came by this assertion with a lot of difficulty – initially believing that most genetic engineering in our food supply was a bad thing. But, as usual, the issue isn’t black and white. With bananas, the shade of gray is especially green.
Read the piece here.
First good. Second, not so good.
More or less, maybe, according to the May issue of the science/tech/culture publication, because:
GMO agriculture may have a smaller carbon footprint than traditionally grown crops.
Organics may have a larger carbon footprint than traditionally grown crops.
In my book, I note that the promise of organic bananas is far less than we’d wish it to be – and the potential of GM bananas has been so undervalued (and so feared) as to be a factor in creating hunger in banana-dependent populations worldwide, as well as contributing to the reduction of genetic diversity in the global banana crop.
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Though one’s gotta say, kitteh don’t look too happeh.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has begun one of the largest privately-funded banana genetics research projects; the greenhouse breeding program is concentrating on subsistence bananas – the kind millions of people in the African highlands depend on as their primary source of nutrition – and using DNA engineering and traditional breeding techniques to increase levels of vitamin A and iron in those fruits.
Those are worthy goals, but I find it interesting that building disease resistance – the most important thing that needs to happen in the area surrounding Lake Victoria, where fungal wilts are rapidly destroying banana crops – seems to be a secondary goal, at least according to the article linked above. The project is being run by James Dale, a well-known banana biotech researcher who is quoted in my book.
Meanwhile, in Africa, some Gates foundation work is seen as controversial, precisely because it is technology-oriented. My feeling is that bananas – because they are quite difficult to breed, and because it is very late in the game in terms of improving their strength in the field – require as much technology as they can get. In this case, perhaps, this may be a version of Windows that is able to prevent viruses (sorry.)
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman recommends it.
Listen to my interview on NPR's Fresh Air.
My own op-ed in the New York Times.
Other Books:
