The world's farms produce only a handful of varieties of bananas, avocados, coffee and other foods – leaving them more vulnerable to the climate breakdown. The global food industry had other ideas and over the past century, humans have increasingly relied on fewer and fewer crop varieties that can be mass-produced and shipped around the world. "The line between abundance and disaster is becoming thinner and thinner and the public is unaware and unconcerned," writes Dan Saladino in his book Eating to Extinction. This story of the humble banana, one of the cheapest, most popular and most traded fruits globally, shows us why diversity is so crucial.