Trygve discussing future of bananas at NRK (the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation)
Evy JørgensenThe discussion at NRK on May 16, where Trygve was asked his opinion, was inspired by an article in New Scientist: ' A future with no bananas?' .
The gene pool of both wild bananas and traditional varieties cultivated in India has been catastrophically narrowed, which have made this species extremely suseptible to diseases.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that wild banana species are rapidly going extinct as Indian forests are destroyed, while many traditional farmers' varieties are also disappearing. The FAO is calling for a systematic exploration of the wild bananas' remaining forest habitat, which lies in some of India's most remote regions and in the jungles of Southeast Asia, to catalog the number and types of surviving wild species. The food agency, which tries to preserve agricultural biodiversity, has sought better land management in India and the introduction of wild bananas in developing new species of the fruit for cultivation.
Trygve says this is the major problem in commercial produce of bananas. In villages where people grow them for their own consumption, a wider range of varieties is being used.
(A hint from Liv; interview with Trygve by Evy)
Updated: 23.05.06
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E-mail: noragric@umb.no
Postal address:
Noragric, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
P.O. Box 5003
NO-1432 Aas
Norway
Visiting/delivery address:
Universitetstunet 1 (Tivoli)
NO-1432 Ås