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Forgotten crops in the limelight

The paper “Forgotten food crops in sub-Saharan Africa for healthy diets in a changing climate” by Maarten van Zonneveld, Roeland Kindt, Stepha McMullin, Enoch G. Achigan-Dako, Sognigbé N’Danikou, Wei-hsun Hsieh, Yann-rong Lin, and Ian K. Dawson has won the PNAS 2023 Cozzarelli Prize for the best paper of the year in Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Here’s the abstract:

As the climate changes, major staple crop production in sub-Saharan Africa becomes increasingly vulnerable. Underutilized traditional food plants offer opportunities for diversifying cropping systems. In this study, the authors used climate niche modeling to assess the potential of 138 traditional food plants to diversify or replace staple crop production in sub-Saharan Africa by 2070. The authors report that staple crops may no longer be able to grow at approximately 10% of locations by 2070. Further, the authors identified 58 traditional crops that provide complementary micronutrient contents suitable for integration into staple cropping systems under current and projected climatic conditions. The results suggest that diversifying sub-Saharan African food production with underutilized crops could improve climate resilience and dietary health.

And here’s a video explaining the results:

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Nibbles: VACS, FAO forgotten foods, African roots, Hopi corn, Adivasis rice, Sustainable farming, Llama history, Vicuña sweaters, Portuguese cattle, Mexico genebank, NZ genebank, Bat pollination, Eat This Newsletter, WEF

  1. More on the US push for opportunity crops.
  2. Oh look there’s a whole compendium on African opportunity crops from FAO.
  3. Many of them are roots and tubers.
  4. For the Hopi, maize is an opportunity crop.
  5. For the Adivasis, it’s rice.
  6. And more along the same lines from Odisha.
  7. Llamas were an opportunity for lots of people down the ages.
  8. …and still are, for some.
  9. Portugal eschews llamas for an ancient cattle breed.
  10. I bet Mexico’s genebank offers some amazing opportunities.
  11. And New Zealand’s too.
  12. Let’s not forget bats. Yes, bats.
  13. Jeremy’s latest newsletter tackles turmeric, pepper and sweet potatoes, among other things.
  14. And the best way to frame all of the above is that the World Economic Forum wants governments to ban people from growing their own food because that causes climate change.