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Forget that pistachios are not native to Australia. The lesson is - you plant genetically uniform (aka GMO or monopoly Monsanto seeds) plants, you risk huge, massive, really big crop failure. 50% down and half of those inedible - those are big numbers.
What would the result be if 50-75% of the world's alfalfa, wheat, rice, or oat crop failed in one season? Can you imagine at least 1 billion dying of hunger and another billion or so from war, revolution, and genocide?
OK, OK. I know. You want to go back to watching your reruns of Seinfeld.
Australia Pistachio Disaster Hints at Agricultural Breakdown
The culprit was anthracnose, a fungal disease best known for infecting mangoes. It raced through the industry, resulting in a harvest some 50 percent smaller than expected — and half of that was inedible.
“The wide cultivation of genetically uniform plant populations fosters rapid evolution among the pathogens,” said Scot Nelson, a plant pathologist at the University of Hawaii. “Because of this greed, new pathogens or newly reported host-pathogen combinations arise almost daily around the world.”
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