The bananas in your supermarket and that you eat for breakfast are facing functional extinction due to the disease Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB), caused by a fungal pathogen called Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4).
Attempting to preserve this variety may not be very viable unless they genetically alter it, or keep a large enough population alive in a clean environment for a decade until all the other ones die and the fungus is diminished. Seems easier to just grow a different variety maybe, but not as commercially viable at that point? I don’t know enough about how/why bananas are as cheap as they are (aside from the awful bits of the industry).
Attempting to preserve this variety may not be very viable unless they genetically alter it, or keep a large enough population alive in a clean environment for a decade until all the other ones die and the fungus is diminished. Seems easier to just grow a different variety maybe, but not as commercially viable at that point? I don’t know enough about how/why bananas are as cheap as they are (aside from the awful bits of the industry).