Oolon Colluphid

There’s also rather a lot of dosh to be had from keeping rich people alive, if not poor ones. But I await the next (near-certain) San Andreas mega-quake and influenza pandemic with a sort of I-told-you-so horror. To think we can just throw money at this stuff is rather naïve.

DT

The Admiral

Terrier

I think you either mis-understood my point or I didn't make it clear.

We have no control over the situation. It is not "we" who are going to throw money. The hugely wealthy who are getting their money from the banana plantations will spend what is necessary to maintain the status quo.

The Admiral

Blinn

On one occasion when I was wheeling around in the sticks of Panama with some colleagues, we came across a campesino that had a huge bunch of bananas up for sale in his "front yard." These things were about 6" long and 3" in diameter. The skins were a beautiful lemon-yellow color with no blemishes and they had a wonderfully lemony flavor as well. Best bananas I've ever had. We bought the whole bunch (probably a hundred bananas) for a buck or two I think and took them back to camp for the rest of the group. My recollection is that the guy called them "Chinese bananas" in Spanish. It makes you wonder how many little known, perhaps regional varieties, are out there. So yes, I would suggest that there are other varieties out there that could probably be used to diversify the genetics of commercially farmed bananas.

Oolon Colluphid

Aye-aye, Admiral!

Sorry, I think we were arguing at cross-purposes. I agree that it’s not ‘we’ who’ll be spending (or not). But what’s ‘naïve’ is to think that even if money could be thrown, these things can be solved before disaster strikes. I believe science can indeed potentially solve any problem -- but not at short notice.

There’s a hell of a lot more at stake than a food crop should (ie when) a new influenza strain, say, turns up. And even as things are, there’s money to be made by the drug company that can make an all-strain anti-flu jab -- even from rich westerners who get but a few sniffles. Yet despite the money that is being ‘thrown’ at it -- and such a serum (or what-have-you) is just as big an incentive to research as what banana producers face -- I’ve certainly not heard of any such medicine being on the horizon.

In recent times here in Britain there have been two big food problems: foot and mouth, and BSE. Yet despite the vast sums involved, contingency plans were rather thin on the ground. Ad hoc frantic running around afterwards, however... And F&M was a known problem; BSE was more like the banana situation, and it nearly ruined the beef industry.

IOW, I doubt banana producers are sufficiently in control of the situation, nor that they have contingency plans in place that mean this will pass like the Y2K non-event. If it does so, it most likely will not be because of forward planning... and we cannot assume that it will be solvable by investment before it’s too late.

DT, Messenger of Doom

Gurdur

heh, heh, HEH.

Me too.

The Admiral

Terrier

<<Sorry, I think we were arguing at cross-purposes. I agree that it’s not ‘we’ who’ll be spending (or not). But what’s ‘naïve’ is to think that even if money could be thrown, these things can be solved before disaster strikes. I believe science can indeed potentially solve any problem -- but not at short notice. >>

Yep, I think we are argueing at cross purposes and I hope I am not being hardheaded about it. Let me take just one phrase of yours "but not at short notice".

Is it to your knowlege, short notice? It isn't to mine. This thread is the first I have heard of this problem. I have got to assume that the scientists who work for the fruit companies have known about it for a somewhat longer time.

Until I know more about it I'll just stick by my statement that in a year or to this will turn out to be another Y2K.

I'm really interested in this. We eat a lot of bananas. And of this moment the stores have bins of them and the price does not seem to be riseing.

Be of good faith.

The Admiral

Oolon Colluphid

A non sequituur if there ever was one! Just because something has been known of for a long time doesn’t mean that a solution is in sight. How long has the San Andreas been known of? And to where do people still flock? On what land (ie cheaper) are things like hospitals and schools built?

I really hope you are right. But I fear past experience may be against you.

In the cases of both BSE and foot and mouth disease, while the problems have abated, they have not gone away.

There is a vaccine for f&m... but it doen’t last long, and so cannot be used to eradicate it as with, eg, polio. Hence the massive pyres and the stench of thousands of burning cattle seen in the British countryside in 2001.



I suggest a browse round the BBC’s f&m news archive for the full story, which may not have reached provincial areas of the globe like the US.

As I say, there is a vaccine... but no long-term cure. This is in the nature of the disease, as with influenza. There’s over 40 strains of the virus, and they mutate freely, with new strains regularly emerging.

Science knows more about f&m since the 1967 UK epidemic. But is no nearer actually solving it, any more than it is for influenza, which still kills hundreds of thousands each year -- in a normal year, let alone a pandemic. And this is despite the fact that foot ‘n’ mouth has been known about for rather a long time, and there is plenty of research and money involved. The practical weapons against it are isolation and mass burnings. That is reactive, not pro-active.

And bovine spongiform encephalopathy. I’m not sure how certain the link is with new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, but nevertheless... this is newer... but not that damned new.

BSE was first identified in November 1986. Sixteen years later: is it cured? Nope. The industry has instead bypassed the problem (we hope), by the removal from meat products of brain and spinal tissues where (it is thought) the prions (thought to be the cause) are (mainly) present. It hasn’t gone away, and if it were a disease that infested, say, muscle (ie meat), the industry would be utterly bolloxed. They got lucky. But removal of the offending tissues -- which took its time to be introduced -- is also reactive, not pro-active.

I see no reason why this banana situation is likely to be different. Industries won’t spend money unless they have to, unless they’re backed into a corner. They are reactive. If a disease is new, or one that goes from being a slight nuisance to major problem in a short time, the amount of prior reseach into it is very likely to be small (you don’t invest greatly to solve a slight problem). Note that in this case, there’s not a single disease, but a whole bunch () of them.

By the time the research is up to speed, it may be too late. Maybe it will be, maybe it won’t, but the industry’s hopes hang on luck, on a breakthrough (or in this case, several), not on what they can implement immediately.

Hope for the banana industry therefore lies in the diseases being easy to find cures for (fingers crossed, eh?), or in cultivating (somehow) other strains -- ie by effectively ignoring the problem for the current cultivars.

Personally, my prediction is that genetic engineering of related varieties will be the way it will go, and we won’t be eating the same bananas in ten years’ time. If it does happen to pass calmly, like a duck on a pond, it will not be without a hell of a lot of frantic paddling below the surface.

Cheers, DT

The Admiral

D T

You are obviously a lot better informed on the subject than I am and therefore probably closer to being right so I'll drop the issue, but I'll be watching the banana market. Could be an investment opportunity buried in there somewhere.

The Admiral

The Admiral

BUT:

I like bananas
because they have no bones.

The Hoosier Hot Shots

B. H. Manners

I like bananas and do not want them to become extinct.