This article details why the practice of growing crops with limited genetic diversity, called monoculture, while facilitating cheap and efficient commercial agriculture and marketing, will absolutely leave food systems dangerously vulnerable to disease epidemics. In this case an incurable fungal infection of the banana plants which very likely will render the plants incapable of producing bananas!

This is a fantastic article, shedding so much light on what appears to soon be a disastrous situation for Latin American exports and those who love bananas here in the U.S. It goes into depth on everything from the disease itself, to the financial dependency some Latin American nations have on banana exports. Very well done.

Article goes in depth, and there's a 'history of bananas' video that covers much of the history in 2 mins. I think it's unfortunate that the connection between United Fruit & the CIA & secret wars in Central America, and a brief discussion of whether there is any drug connection, but that's not the focus of the story so I forgive the author for that. "Commercial plantations grow almost exclusively one clonal variety, called the Cavendish; these plants’ identical genetics mean they are also identically susceptible to disease. The practice of growing crops with limited genetic diversity—technically called monoculture—aids in cheap and efficient commercial agriculture and marketing, but it leaves food systems dangerously vulnerable to disease epidemics." Gee, maybe we should stop monoculture farming & switch to bio-diversity -- since it's how nature works, anyway?!?!? Nope, GM engineers will spend millions to bio-engineer a new banana so we can all eat an identical fruit that is resistant to one disease. SHORT SIGHTED!!!!

The article provides great context for the current threat to the banana industry and chronicles the path that lead to where we are now

The one thing I really wish this article had was a link or citation for the study or group that detected the virus so we could know how it was detected, where it was detected, and whether anyone is doing anything to isolate it if possible. I also really wish they discussed time scale, how quickly does the virus cause trees to stop producing virus? How quickly is the virus known to spread? The information here is great, but there are some holes. For those who want to know more: https://www.ica.gov.co/noticias/ica-amplia-y-refuerza-las-medidas-que-ya-venia-im