Did you know that bananas are one of the biggest monocultures that exist in agriculture? Almost every banana we see in the grocery store is a clone of the Cavendish banana, which has disease resistance and good traveling qualities that make it profitable for banana farmers. But now a new disease called “Fusarium Oxysporum Tropical Race Four” is threatening to destroy Cavendish banana cultivation as it spreads around the world. To provide new varieties which may be more resistant to this “banana HIV”, genetic modification may be the best hope. You can read about this at https://magazine.good.is/articles/cavendish-banana-fungus-monoculture-gmos.
While the article does not address climate directly, it does show the susceptibility of agriculture to impacts when the agriculture lacks diversity. Here in the Southeast, we already use a great deal of crop diversity which may make us less prone to threats from attacks on individual crops than a monoculture cultivation. Increased use of a variety of crops in the future may make Southeastern farmers more resilient to changes in climate in the future.
