What is the importance of biodiversity?

What is the importance of biodiversity in food technology?

• Answer:

  Biodiversity is critical to any ecology. In our food industry, we've narrowed the number of varieties and in some areas the number of crops dangerously. Take the corn belt for example. Hundreds of square miles are dedicated to corn and no other crops. If a disease to which corn was suseptable took hold it could wipe out hundres of square miles with no boundary of other crops to stop it. The Irish potato famine is an example of this happening in history. The potato blight wiped out almost all the potato farms in Ireland because the crops were almost exclusively potatoes and the same type of potatoes. With a diverse mixture of plants, a disease or insect can only do limited harm.