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Article: 10 years left for banana
- Article from:
- The Press
- Article date:
- January 17, 2003
CopyrightCopyright 2003 The Press. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Buy your bananas now. Scientists warn that the world's favourite
fruit could be extinct within 10 years because it is unable to fight
off a rampaging plague of pests and disease.
Emile Frison, head of a worldwide network of banana researchers,
warned that the fruit was at crisis point, with yields in decline in
much of Africa, Asia, and Central America.
He and other scientists warned that people most dependent on the
banana, relying on it for up to half their daily calories, are facing
the tropical equivalent of the Irish potato famine.
The doomed banana's Achilles heel is that it is a genetically
decrepit sterile mutant. One of the oldest crops, the first edible
variety was propagated ...