A world without chocolate? A break without coffee? Sushi without rice? The hypotheses seem crazy, but given the threat of climate change, experts have urgently begun to track the wild ancestors of the plants that make up our diet.
When “threatened species” are mentioned, polar bears, pandas, or elephants are often remembered, and flora is forgotten.
“There are things that we feel are right,” says Aaron Davis, a scientist at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, UK.
Global warming has consequences for such essential crops as cereals, coffee, tea, cocoa, or bananas.
Some of these species, such as potatoes and rice, are essential in the diet of billions of human beings.
According to a study published in May 2021, at least a third of agricultural production would be threatened.
Rice plantations, for example, would be directly threatened by rising sea levels, which increase salinity in the deltas.
The International Potato Center forecasts a 32% drop in harvests by 2060.
In relation to coffee and cocoa, several studies project a significant fall in the area of crops, between now and 2050, and up to 50%, in the case of coffee.
For over 10,000 years, mankind has used selective cultivation techniques to adapt plant species for agricultural use in a given environment.
This environment is rapidly changing, however, and perhaps it is time to recover the original “wild” versions.
“When you select the ‘best’ (species), you necessarily lose some genes. We lost genetic diversity”, explains Benjamin Kilian, from the Crop Trust foundation.
Consequently, “the ability of these crops to adapt to climate change, or other challenges, is necessarily limited,” he adds.
As temperatures rise, “we will need to use as much biodiversity as possible, to reduce risks and offer different options,” stresses Marleni Ramírez, an expert at the CGIAR international agricultural research consortium.
– Very late? –
The first obstacle to using ancestral genetic traits, such as greater resistance to salinity, or heat, is having access to these wild versions.
There are genetic seed banks, such as the Kew Millenium Seed Bank, which collects and stores the grains of nearly 40,000 species of wild plants in England.
“But not all wild species are represented,” says Benjamin Kilian.
Thus, specialized botanists are needed for a long and expensive task.
Between 2013 and 2018, the Crop Trust collected more than 4,600 samples of 371 wild varieties from 28 priority crops, such as rice, wheat, sweet potatoes, bananas and apples.
Aaron Davis and his colleagues found a wild type of coffee in Sierra Leone, stronger and more resistant to heat than sensitive Arabica.
“If we had gone there ten years later, it would probably already be extinct”, he estimates.
“Of the 124 known species of coffee, 60% are threatened with extinction”, he warns.
Coffee plantations are not the only ones affected. In four Central American countries, for example, a region that is the cradle of many crops, 70 wild species of plants essential for food – such as corn, potatoes, avocados and pumpkins – are threatened with extinction, that is, 35% of the plants analyzed, reveals a recent study.
Experts fear it’s too late. Also, once found and collected, the job is not complete.
Varieties are not necessarily ready for large-scale cultivation. So, it will still be necessary to test them.
And “it could take 10, 15, 20 years” if genetic engineering is not used, warns Benjamin Killian.
In the case of potatoes, the development of a new variety can take up to 100 years.
See too
+ Until 2019, there were more people in prisons than on the Brazilian stock exchange
+ Aloe gel in the drink: see the benefits
+ Lemon-squeezing trick becomes a craze on social media
+ Chef playmate creates aphrodisiac recipe for Orgasm Day
+ Mercedes-Benz Sprinter wins motorhome version
+ Anorexia, an eating disorder that can lead to death
+ US agency warns: never wash raw chicken meat
+ Yasmin Brunet breaks the silence
+ Shark is captured in MA with the remains of youngsters missing in the stomach
+ See how much it costs to eat at the MasterChef judges’ restaurants
+ Auction of cars and motorcycles from Kombi to Nissan Frontier 0km