“…an ecological issue; think potato famine, but on a global scale. Martin says if there’s increasing dominance by a few genetic lineages of crops, then the global agricultural system becomes increasingly susceptible to pests or diseases. He points to a deadly fungus that continues to devastate banana plantations around the world as an example.”
Read 2019 press release from University of Toronto here: https://utsc.utoronto.ca/news-events/breaking-research/small-number-crops-are-dominating-globally-and-thats-bad-news-sustainable
Paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209788
Regional and global shifts in crop diversity through the Anthropocene
Martin AR, Cadotte MW, Isaac ME, Milla R, Vile D, et al. (2019) Regional and global shifts in crop diversity through the Anthropocene. PLOS ONE 14(2): e0209788.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209788