Opinion

Idon’t suppose you have heard of the Cavendish banana? Quite frankly neither had I but I heard a discussion about growing them in Uganda that was quite refreshing. To give you a bit of background, the Cavendish banana is the one you will buy in the supermarket. It is the one most consumed in the West but there are many related varieties.

the Duke of Devonshire (who was a Cavendish).They were subsequently transported all over the world for cultivation.

Now here comes the rub. A disease known as Panama disease started to decimate this variety and it is being destroyed in most of the places it is grown.The answer, by the huge international companies which grow it, is to continue moving it to new countries and grow it there. After a time Panama catches them up and destroys the production.

The Ugandan was arguing that it should not come to their country as they have 50 different varieties of banana, from ones that are used as a main course to intensely sweet, small varieties.

He argued that their heritage was being destroyed as each plantation of locally sold bananas was replaced with Cavendish in the name of exporting.

Uganda is not a rich country and precious exports to the West are needed for their balance of payments. Nonetheless, I would argue that this is exactly the problem we are creating in all forms of agri and aquaculture.

In the name of cost and capitalism we suborn variety of diet and the options for our children to taste things we have not.We lose genes and focus genetics on traits that suit us now but have no eye for the future.

Too many breeding schemes are cost based and very few are created to keep the essential components of food - taste and wholesomeness.

Let’s take the much vaunted family selection, which has been touted on many, many occasions for the broodstocks that I have had in my career.The proposal has always been that this would protect against inbreeding and allow the farmer to select the traits wanted.

I have been told on many occasions that this doesn’t have to mean fast growth or good conversion and could mean just the opposite. I am sure that this is true, though I would not vouch that the normal human reaction would not occur, to try to grow bigger, faster.

But at no point in all the times that this option was offered to me did any company point out the one huge pitfall in the process.To make it feasible economically you have to limit the number of families. So to make it cost-effective as a means of breeding, you have to throw away

I have been told that these families would be related anyway so it would not matter but this is palpably false.Take a look at your family and then at your cousins. See a family resemblance? Oh you will share genes but you don’t look, act or behave the same.

You never know what you have thrown away and so you cannot reverse. One of the reasons I like a car with a reverse gear is that I don’t always know the situation I am going to get into or who or what I might run into.

My heart went out to the Ugandan who was trying to protect something that you and I have never tasted, which is a food loved in that country.

We need to protect variety as much as we possibly can. I have always been proud to grow a stock based on a Scottish river, Scottish genes and the Scottish environment.

I am sure there are plenty of good reasons to grow other stocks, but remember the story of Aberdeen Angus. Farmers in this country had to go to Canada and bring back the genes in order that farming it could continue.

I do not suggest that we should not grow particular species but that we should try to maintain genetic and species diversity in what we farm to give as wide a range of offerings to the global market as possible. If I haven’t managed to make you see the banana connection then I suggest you eat more carrots!

Too many breeding schemes are cost based and very few are created to keep the essential components of food