

Building Better Bananas (2012) - givan
http://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Building-Better-Bananas

======
bildung
I was under the impression that hunger is primarily a distribution issue, not
an issue of production. Gates implicitly states that the vitamin A deficit is
mainly a result of a one-sided diet. But isn't the one-sided diet itself a
result of a lack of alternatives? So, if alternatives cannot currently be
distributed to meet demand, how would a new breed of bananas solve that? Don't
they also have to get distributed into those regions first?

~~~
tfinniga
I think "distribution" in this context is just a nice way of saying that poor
people can't afford better food from elsewhere, they have to rely on what is
cheap and can be bought from the local market.

If they're already buying bananas as a staple food, then I presume that the
fix would be for the government to go to the local growers and either give the
better banana plants for free, or at a discounted rate, or some other
incentive. If that's what the growers grow, then that is what will eventually
be available at the market.

If they're growing their own food then that's a bit harder, but you could
probably come up with some sort of incentive scheme to get people to switch.
You could try charging the same amount as normal, but tell people that the new
ones prevent blindness and anemia in children.

~~~
bildung
> I think "distribution" in this context is just a nice way of saying that
> poor people can't afford better food from elsewhere, they have to rely on
> what is cheap and can be bought from the local market.

That may very well be the case.

> If they're already buying bananas as a staple food, then I presume that the
> fix would be for the government to go to the local growers and either give
> the better banana plants for free, or at a discounted rate, or some other
> incentive. If that's what the growers grow, then that is what will
> eventually be available at the market.

I think that exactly is the distribution problem again: If the government has
the means to do that, why is it not providing seeds/saplings etc. of vitamin A
containing crops right now? Bananas are a really demanding crop, so the soil
has to be of high quality.

Most probably the article just left this information out for the sake of
readability, but given the current information my fear is that these GMO
bananas are a solution for a problem complex that has not been researched
deeply enough to have a firm understanding of the causes. Like a startup
running with the mantra 'build it and they will come' :)

~~~
Retric
Plants are vary region specific, and banana's are far easer to cultivate in
some areas than just about anything else. It also far less costly to
distribute seeds than what the seeds make. More importantly, once you swap DNA
your done it's a one time cost with no further development needed.

PS: _Bananas will grow and fruit under poor soil conditions but will be less
productive without deep, well-drained soil; forest loam, rocky sand, marl, red
laterite, volcanic ash, sandy clay, or even heavy clay. The key element in
soil type for successful banana plant growth is good drainage. Alluvial soils
of river valleys are ideal for banana growing. Bananas prefer an acid
soil.[3]_

------
svsaraf
The most important thing to recognize here is that bananas used as crops do
not exhibit genetic drift (they are sterile). We clone new bananas from
existing plants. Many of the bananas today, including the Cavendish, are thus
very vulnerable to diseases like the fungus mentioned.

Genetic modification is one of the few ways we can keep the bananas we like
while adjusting them for more recent diseases and pests. The only other way I
know is to go back and find the ancestral species, and try to breed a fertile
banana cousin.

~~~
shabble
It also seems like it would negate one of the biggest potential hazards of GMO
applications - the accidental spread of damaging traits to native species
through cross-pollination.

IIRC the seeding ability was intentionally bred out of cultivated bananas
because the seeds themselves were large, inedible, and comprised a significant
portion of the fruit itself.

~~~
kiba
GE crops are designed to grow food for humans, not optimized to survive in the
wild.

~~~
Goosey
At which point does the latter result in the former being shortsighted?

~~~
nitid_name
That happens on the post-apocalyptic time line, I would assume

------
gus_massa
> _Making banana plants less susceptible to diseases is a secondary goal for
> us. Our primary goal is to help Dale develop new types of banana that are
> more nutritious – specifically, much richer in Vitamin A and Iron that the
> body can absorb._

I don’t like some details.

The banana needs a little more energy to produce more Vitamin A, so the plant
will yield fewer bananas and these bananas will be more expensive. You will
get more Vitamin A but fewer carbohydrates. I’m not sure that this is a good
deal in the very poor parts of the word.

The problem with the Iron content is easier to see. The banana has to take the
Iron from the soil, unless it’s a very rich Iron zone, so you need to use a
fertilizer to replace the Iron. This also makes the bananas more expensive.

~~~
svsaraf
_The banana needs a little more energy to produce more Vitamin A, so the plant
will yield fewer bananas and these bananas will be more expensive._

While it is true the banana would use more energy, there is no evidence for
lower crop yields.

 _The banana has to take the Iron from the soil, unless it’s a very rich Iron
zone, so you need to use a fertilizer to replace the Iron. This also makes the
bananas more expensive._

The gene they are using is from the soybean plant. Since there is a
significant amount of iron in soil to begin with, I doubt fertilizer is
required to supplement the soil with iron.

~~~
VLM
Most of the time in the USA you end up with iron deficiency in soil by having
it too alkaline. There's iron but the plants can't use it above pH 7 or so.
Very much like dehydrating in an ocean, plenty of H2O just can't adsorb it
from the seawater. So most iron problems in the USA are actually pH problems
causing a lack of iron not a lack of iron itself. So most commercial "iron
fertilizer" etc is something to acidify the soil and only a little actual iron
sulfate.

It takes VERY little iron sulfate to provide the required iron for soil. It
takes a lot of stuff to drop the pH a point or two.

If you research this you'll find that fixing iron deficiency in the USA caused
by excessive use of certain fertilizers and it is REALLY EXPENSIVE and labor
intensive because most of the money is blown on fixing the pH to make the
plentiful existing iron available.

In the unlikely even you're low on actual iron in the soil, iron sulfate is
ridiculously cheap and it doesn't take much, like a spoonful per 100 sq ft, so
a $10 bag should be something like a lifetime supply for an entire village...

Also some fertilizers are good iron sources so supplementation is not
necessary or even a good idea.

Given where I live banana cultivation isn't a serious issue so I don't know
how bananas and their fertilizers interact WRT soil pH.

The TLDR is don't confuse soil pH repair with Fe supplementation (especially
since one costs 100x more than the other) and iron may not even theoretically
be a possible problem depending on local fertilization practices.

~~~
afarrell
Googling for "banana cultivation acidity" gets me a wikihow article saying
"The ideal soil acidity for bananas is between pH 5.5 and 7".

------
neves
BTW, maybe it is some kind of psychological, but I really fell that the
bananas I eat today are less tastier than the one I ate when I was a child.

~~~
rustyconover
I have the same thoughts about tomatoes. Tomatoes today have no flavor
compared to what I remembered. It could be the flavor notes of childhood-
backyard-summertime nostalgia, New Jersey terrior, and simply explained by the
genetic modification such that tomatoes could be mechanically harvested weeks
before they're ripe in the field. I'm a tomato luddite.

~~~
TheBiv
Tomatoes, definitely! My brother works at a major shipping company and
tomatoes are picked green, and then the trucks they are shipped in have an
environment where they turn red.

You can really taste the difference when you go to a farmers market and try a
fresh tomato! Make sure the top of the tomato is orange so that you know it's
fresh!

~~~
retroafroman
Bananas are often force rippened at the warehouse before sale, as well.

~~~
daviddumenil
The ethylene is used to retrigger their natural ripening process which has
been stunted to allow them to be shipped abroad.

------
boyaka
Vitamin A, problem solved:
[http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=106](http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=106)

------
ataggart
Considering the opposition to golden rice (sometimes violently [1]) to fulfill
this role in other parts of the world, these bananas are probably DOA. So long
as middle-class Westerners imagine someone somewhere might end up making a
profit, they will prefer children in developing countries starve and go blind
[2].

[1] [http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/08/activists-
des...](http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/08/activists-destroy-
golden-rice-field-trial)

[2] [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-
blog/2014/03/15/go...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-
blog/2014/03/15/golden-rice-opponents-should-be-held-accountable-for-health-
problems-linked-to-vitamain-a-deficiency/)

~~~
elfcard
Here is the deal, we simply haven't had the time to determine if this is safe.
And anyone who says it is is lying, because that's simply impossible to tell
at this point. We know that with our best intentions and cutting edge science,
we created margarine, something to save the arteries of the world. Only to
find out that we didn't understand the science well enough, and margarine was
essentially the stuff causing the problem. So, am I willing to use people as
an experiment so they don't have a vitamin deficiency? Not yet. I want to see
far more evidence, and I want to see a lot more studies conducted over at
least 10-20 years.

~~~
maxerickson
Margarine has a more interesting history than that:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#History)

It was mostly about making a fat spread that was cheaper than butter.
Relatively recent marketing probably made lots of health claims.

I suppose that makes the development a closer parallel with golden rice (or
bananas), but I think you are underestimating the understanding that the
developers of these organisms have.

~~~
aestra
Interestingly enough butter consumption has skyrocketed and has surpassed
margarine consumption for the first time since the 50s. The hype has worn off,
the health benefits haven't been proven, and margarine has become the poster
child for "fake" foods.

[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-30/unilever-
add...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-30/unilever-adds-butter-
to-margarine-as-the-foods-fortunes-reverse)

It helps that butter tastes so much better. I grew up on margarine and butter
was like a forbidden fruit to my mom because it was "so bad for you." I grew
up thinking butter was death in stick form. I always bought margarine as an
adult because you do what your parents did unless you have a reason not to.
Well, at some point a few years ago I questioned it and switched over to
butter. Guess who also switched to butter recently after decrying it my whole
life? My mom.

