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ysabetwordsmithEarth's changing climate is harming crop diversity exactly where the security of global food production needs it most
A new study warns that if global warming surpasses 1.5°C, vast regions could lose critical crop diversity, heightening the risk to worldwide food security.
Researchers predict that about one-third of global food production may be in jeopardy due to higher temperatures, underscoring how climate change is expected to reshape agriculture, especially in vulnerable low-latitude countries.
You know what? I think they're barking up the wrong tree here. Humans have done FAR more damage to the foodstream than climate change has so far. I'm sure climate change will get around to that, but it's late to the party. Humans have already discarded many traditional crops because they don't lend themselves to commercial growing, drastically limiting the typical diet.
Did you know that while there are over 400,000 known plant species on Earth, it's estimated that humans could consume more than 300,000 of these? Despite this astonishing diversity, we predominantly rely on fewer than 200 species for our daily sustenance, with just three—maize, rice, and wheat—accounting for more than half of the calories we consume.
Further offenses include breeding crops for commercial convenience instead of nutrition or flavor, the deliberate spread of cytoplasmic male sterility, several thousand years of lazy cloning such that some key crops like potatoes are difficult or impossible to reproduce sexually, GMO contamination of other crops, and so on. Humans are stupid. Risking your food supply will get you killed. Seriously, plenty of civilizations have collapsed because they relied on one or a few foods and wouldn't switch when those crops failed.
Major staples – rice, maize, wheat, potato, and soybean – are likely to face severe reductions in suitable cropland, heightening challenges for societies that depend on them for daily nutrition.
So EAT SOMETHING ELSE. Seek out cultivars of modern foods that are resistant to your local hazards. Investigate traditional foodways from your region and try those.
“For example, the cultivation of temperate fruits, such as pears, could become more common in more northerly regions,” Heikonen said.
Yeah, southern apples like Arkansas Black now produce delicious fruit in Illinois. That was disorienting. Do test your boundaries with crops.
“In many low latitude areas, especially in Africa, the yields are small compared to similar areas elsewhere in the world. They could get higher yields with access to fertilisers and irrigation as well as reducing food losses through the production and storage chain,” he said.
For fucksake, it's AFRICA, where humans evolved. Eat the bush. Go into an African grocery store and look at all the edible stuff they hauled over because white people overlook it. Look at the parts they are eating that white people don't, like sweet potato leaves. Try the moringa! Seriously consider whether it's wise to try growing European crops there instead of local ones.
What You Can Do:
* If you garden, grow landraces. Check out the landraces at Buffalo Seed Company; they even have a Lofthouse Seed Set for large gardens. Maximize genetic diversity to boost ability to adapt to challenges. Open-pollinated, heirloom crops are also good. Generally avoid hybrids.
* If you don't garden, seek landrace and heirloom foods at farmer's markets or health food stores.
* Research dryland crops and historic foods. Just about any cultivar with a tribal source is worth a try if your climate is similar to its origin (e.g. Lakota Squash in the north, Hopi Orange in the southwest, or Seminole Pumpkin in the southeast). You will be surprised how many "weeds" are actually the escaped agricultural crops of lost civilizations.
* Remember that you can't eat what isn't there. Feed the soil, so it can feed the plants, so they can feed you. Making soil is one of the few things that humans can do faster and better than nature, so make some compost. If you don't garden, seek organic / biodynamic / regenerative / syntropic / permaculture farmers at farmer's markets.
* Learn to forage. Many areas have classes about wild foods from greens to berries to mushrooms. We're just about to start foraging season, so now's the time. Watch your library, community center, garden store, community college, etc. If you can't find a class, there are foraging books.
Look at the commercial foodstream. Don't depend on those fuckwits to feed you. Do what you can to pursue food sovereignty. Even if you can't garden or forage, knowledge of edibles may be shared with others who can.
A new study warns that if global warming surpasses 1.5°C, vast regions could lose critical crop diversity, heightening the risk to worldwide food security.
Researchers predict that about one-third of global food production may be in jeopardy due to higher temperatures, underscoring how climate change is expected to reshape agriculture, especially in vulnerable low-latitude countries.
You know what? I think they're barking up the wrong tree here. Humans have done FAR more damage to the foodstream than climate change has so far. I'm sure climate change will get around to that, but it's late to the party. Humans have already discarded many traditional crops because they don't lend themselves to commercial growing, drastically limiting the typical diet.
Did you know that while there are over 400,000 known plant species on Earth, it's estimated that humans could consume more than 300,000 of these? Despite this astonishing diversity, we predominantly rely on fewer than 200 species for our daily sustenance, with just three—maize, rice, and wheat—accounting for more than half of the calories we consume.
Further offenses include breeding crops for commercial convenience instead of nutrition or flavor, the deliberate spread of cytoplasmic male sterility, several thousand years of lazy cloning such that some key crops like potatoes are difficult or impossible to reproduce sexually, GMO contamination of other crops, and so on. Humans are stupid. Risking your food supply will get you killed. Seriously, plenty of civilizations have collapsed because they relied on one or a few foods and wouldn't switch when those crops failed.
Major staples – rice, maize, wheat, potato, and soybean – are likely to face severe reductions in suitable cropland, heightening challenges for societies that depend on them for daily nutrition.
So EAT SOMETHING ELSE. Seek out cultivars of modern foods that are resistant to your local hazards. Investigate traditional foodways from your region and try those.
“For example, the cultivation of temperate fruits, such as pears, could become more common in more northerly regions,” Heikonen said.
Yeah, southern apples like Arkansas Black now produce delicious fruit in Illinois. That was disorienting. Do test your boundaries with crops.
“In many low latitude areas, especially in Africa, the yields are small compared to similar areas elsewhere in the world. They could get higher yields with access to fertilisers and irrigation as well as reducing food losses through the production and storage chain,” he said.
For fucksake, it's AFRICA, where humans evolved. Eat the bush. Go into an African grocery store and look at all the edible stuff they hauled over because white people overlook it. Look at the parts they are eating that white people don't, like sweet potato leaves. Try the moringa! Seriously consider whether it's wise to try growing European crops there instead of local ones.
What You Can Do:
* If you garden, grow landraces. Check out the landraces at Buffalo Seed Company; they even have a Lofthouse Seed Set for large gardens. Maximize genetic diversity to boost ability to adapt to challenges. Open-pollinated, heirloom crops are also good. Generally avoid hybrids.
* If you don't garden, seek landrace and heirloom foods at farmer's markets or health food stores.
* Research dryland crops and historic foods. Just about any cultivar with a tribal source is worth a try if your climate is similar to its origin (e.g. Lakota Squash in the north, Hopi Orange in the southwest, or Seminole Pumpkin in the southeast). You will be surprised how many "weeds" are actually the escaped agricultural crops of lost civilizations.
* Remember that you can't eat what isn't there. Feed the soil, so it can feed the plants, so they can feed you. Making soil is one of the few things that humans can do faster and better than nature, so make some compost. If you don't garden, seek organic / biodynamic / regenerative / syntropic / permaculture farmers at farmer's markets.
* Learn to forage. Many areas have classes about wild foods from greens to berries to mushrooms. We're just about to start foraging season, so now's the time. Watch your library, community center, garden store, community college, etc. If you can't find a class, there are foraging books.
Look at the commercial foodstream. Don't depend on those fuckwits to feed you. Do what you can to pursue food sovereignty. Even if you can't garden or forage, knowledge of edibles may be shared with others who can.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-03-18 11:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2026-03-18 11:29 pm (UTC)Go you!
Date: 2026-03-18 11:45 pm (UTC)Exactly. You can grow a LOT of food in a little space. Paris used to support itself with market gardens for most fresh fruits and vegetables, only importing grains and large livestock.
>>I should be able to get peppers and grape vines this year.<<
Woohoo! :D
My little squash plants already outgrew their lid. 0_o Like, how am I supposed to keep these indoors for another month or two? I wound up wedging them into the fairy window. The two landraces sprouted first, then the tiny butternut seeds I saved, and the cushaw is slower. At least the fruit sprouts are staying shorter.
All my willows are leafed out. Some of the things I stuck in with them are too. \o/
Some of what I had outside in jugs or under a tub survived the long hard freeze we had. Some didn't. I'm okay with that. I lean pretty far toward r-strategy gardening. I'm happy to plant more than I need and let the weaker ones die off. I can only afford to coddle a few things, so I want most of my plants to stand up for themselves.
Yes ...
Date: 2026-03-18 11:39 pm (UTC)DARWIN AWARD.
Hell, I'd have picked my shirt full, looked up, wondered where everyone else was, and gone back to the lair.