Genetically restricted cultivars of major food crops likely to be early casualties of extreme temps and weather as world continues warming
by Nina Lakhani, et al., 14/04/2022 in The Guardian
Our food system isn’t ready for the climate crisis: 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 climate breakdown is already threatening many of our favorite foods. In Asia, rice fields are being flooded with saltwater; cyclones have wiped out vanilla crops in Madagascar; in Central America higher temperatures ripen coffee too quickly; drought in sub–Saharan Africa is withering chickpea crops; and rising ocean acidity is killing oysters and scallops in American waters.
All our food systems – agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture – are buckling under the stress of rising temperatures, wildfires, droughts, and floods.
Even in the best-case scenario, global heating is expected to make the earth less suitable for the crops that provide most of our calories. If no action is taken to curtail the climate crisis, crop losses will be devastating.Read the complete article….
Featured Image: A corn crop blighted with Southern corn leaf blight and stalk rot (Bipolaris maydis), by J.C. Wells, North Carolina State University, Bugwood.org / licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License. / via Forestry Images