“Never again should a major cultivated species be molded into such uniformity that it is so universally vulnerable to attack by a pathogen,” wrote plant pathologist Arnold John Ullstrup in a review of the matter published in 1972.
And yet, today, genetic uniformity is one of the main features of most large-scale agricultural systems, leading some scientists to warn that conditions are ripe for more major outbreaks of plant disease.
“I think we have all the conditions for a pandemic in agricultural systems to occur,” said agricologist Miguel Altieri, a professor emeritus from the University of California, Berkeley. Hunger and economic hardship would likely ensue.
And then there are pandemics among crops to worry about: