Selective breeding (AKA artificial selection) is a procedure in which humans intentionally choose the traits they want an organism to pass on to their offspring. Selective breeding is a practice that humans have carried out for hundreds of years. Farmers chose crops and livestock with beneficial and desirable traits (e.g., larger size) and bred them. Despite the fact that they were unfamiliar with the concept of genes and selective breeding, they had probably noticed that when two parents with desirable genes were made to breed, it was very likely that the offspring would inherit those desirable genes. It is now a widely used practice for all kinds of plants and animals to obtain offspring with desirable characteristics. The banana is no exception to this. Currently, when we look at a banana that we can get from the supermarket; we can discover that it has a pleasant and sweet taste, its length and thickness are reasonably impeccable so it fits well in the hands, the surface of the banana is non-slip which makes it easy to hold and there is a small flap at the top of each banana, so you just have to pull it slightly and the skin comes off; giving access to the edible fruits inside. However, the banana has not always had these desirable characteristics. In nature (about thousands of years ago), bananas were nothing like their current derivatives; they were small and oval with extremely thick and tough skin. The inside of the fruit also contained many large, hard seeds. In the past, people would have to peel bananas with sharp stones and continuously spit out seeds while eating bananas. However, humans of the time realized the diversity of each ban...... middle of paper ... already up to 50 percent of the world's banana harvest is lost to insects and diseases » . This is evident since recently a powerful new plant pathogen, the Black Sigatoka fungus, has infiltrated many Cavendish banana plantations across the world. Due to their genetic uniformity, national banana stocks and plantations are all equally vulnerable to this pathogen and banana harvests are said to have already fallen by around 50 to 70 percent since the outbreak of this pathogen. We can thus see very clearly the biological implications that selective breeding and artificial selection have on the diversity and survival of the banana population, because it is no exaggeration to say that the genetic uniformity of the banana can possibly be a contributing factor to obsolescence. and the annihilation of the practical, common and consumable banana population.