venturabananas

Nick, thanks for your input as a banana grower and seller. Personally, I completely agree with you that the transnationals (the "syndicate") are being short sighted on this. I think consumers would readily accept many of the disease resistant FHIA varieties. But each of these disease-resistant variety has different characteristics than Cavendish, which would make them have to change their production and delivery models. And they won't do that until they are forced to by disease or the market because it would reduce their profits. And even if they are forced by disease to switch cultivars, they still will use lazy production methods of huge monocultures, because that's how they maximize profit. If those assumptions about the multinationals are correct, I think it's more likely well see GM bananas on the grocery store shelves before we see FHIA varieties (or other traditionally bred varieties). From my perspective, if that opens up the market to guys like you who aren't growing GM bananas, that'll be great. (Not that I have strong negative feelings about GMOs. As a biologist, I know that I'm surrounded by GMOs every day on campus, in our labs.)

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