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The sun rises above paddy fields at a sustainable rice farming project of GIZ Thailand Agriculture and Food Cluster and Olam Agri, in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, on September 21. Climate change is forcing food scientists to breed new varieties of rice that is more tolerant of salinity and other adverse conditions. Photo: Bloomberg
Opinion
Outside In
by David Dodwell
Outside In
by David Dodwell

Climate change: food science breakthroughs can’t come fast enough for a warming world

  • Many staple crops are under stress as climate change brings hotter, less stable weather, forcing food scientists to experiment with hardier varieties
  • Breakthroughs such as heat-resistant apples and salt-resistant rice hold great promise, but such progress takes a long time
David Dodwell
David Dodwell
Why you can trust SCMP
In February, scientists and farmers from the Hot Climate Partnership attended the Berlin Fruit Logistics trade show, proudly introducing “Tutti” to the world – a crisp red apple variety that is genetically designed to cope with Europe’s increasingly torrid summers.

Tutti’s story began more than 20 years ago, when a group of growers from Catalonia, Spain’s main apple-growing region, travelled to consult food scientists at New Zealand’s Plant and Food Research facility in Hawke’s Bay, one of the world’s best apple-growing regions.

Global warming was putting the livelihoods of Catalan farmers in jeopardy. Apples were ripening too early, and the sharp nighttime drop in temperatures that triggered the pigmentation that turned their apples an attractive red were disappearing. A collapse in rainfall meant their water-guzzling apple trees were unable to survive in a significantly drier world.
They needed to discover apples that could tolerate a hot, dry climate or their centuries-old livelihoods were at an end. Their dilemma was one being faced by farmers across the world – from those farming coffee, tea and cacao in tropical regions to cranberry, peach and walnut farmers in the United States. Winegrowers in California and Australia are also biting their nails.

As Lisa Goddard, at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society, said of foods drifting north as their ideal climate shifts: “Napa Valley pretty much ends up in Canada not too long from now.”

Josh Donaghay-Spire, head winemaker and operations director at English wine producer Chapel Down, views Chardonnay grapes during harvest time at one of the estate vineyards near Maidstone, Kent, on October 5. In recent decades, warmer temperatures have provided better growing conditions for grapes in England. Quality has improved, and English wine is no longer mocked by continental neighbours who once joked it tasted of rain. Photo: Reuters
Farmers are finding that many of our main staple crops are under stress as climate change brings hotter, less stable weather. When wheat, rice and maize together account for about 60 per cent of the calories consumed worldwide, that is no small matter. Many are having to experiment with sorghum, cassava and pearl millet, which seem more drought-tolerant.

The good news for the Catalan apple-growers is that Tutti – and a pipeline of other apple and pear varieties due to be released over the next decade – might provide an answer to their prayers. The bad news is that it has taken over 21 years to get Tutti to market.

What is true for apple-growers is equally true for many other food producers. Food scientists have been able to achieve great things through selective breeding and genetic manipulation, but such miracles take quite a bit of time.
For most farmers, there is no fast-acting “magic bullet” such as the seaweed supplements that are reportedly able to cut cattle’s methane emissions by 80 per cent. This is significant since livestock account for about 30 per cent of all methane emissions that are contributing to global warming.

02:32

Vietnam targets rice as an unlikely contributor to climate change

Vietnam targets rice as an unlikely contributor to climate change
One big, unanswered question is whether science can move quickly enough to meet rising food demand from a growing world population while also fully compensating from the output losses from heat, drought, flood, wildfires, deforestation, salination, pests and invasive species. In India and Bangladesh, flooding has cut rice output by 4 million tonnes a year – enough to feed 30 million people, according to the International Rice Research Institute.
China’s farmers lose an average of 3 to 5 million tonnes a year. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research says that crop yields in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa will be down 35 per cent by 2050, with almost 350 million people worldwide already “acutely food insecure”.

Tutti apples provide a marvellous example of the time scientists need to respond to the climate challenge. The apple variety was selectively chosen from among 253,510 apple seeds explored by food scientists at the Plant and Food Research facility in Hawke’s Bay.

The Tutti seeds were sent to Catalonia’s government research institute, where 90,000 trees have been raised in test orchards in the past two decades. From those 90,000 trees, just 357 varieties made it to the second round of trials, 18 to the third round and just 13 to the final round. Every Tutti apple today comes from a clone of a single tree selected in 2007.

A woman plucks apples from a tree at an orchard during the harvest season at Sopore, in the Baramulla district of Kashmir, on September 21. Photo: Reuters

Richard Volz was 42 when, as the head of apple and pear variety breeding at Food and Plant Research, he launched the search for Tutti and other heat- and drought-tolerant apples in Hawke’s Bay. He is now 64 and regards himself as fortunate to have succeeded before hitting retirement. He looks forward to a day when a Tutti can be brought to market in 13 years compared to the present 20, but even this might not be soon enough for many parts of the farming sector.

Similar protracted stories litter the lives of leading food scientists as they have battled to stay ahead of climate change. Rice varieties have been developed that can cope with floods, droughts and salination, but often at the expense of lower yields.

In Bangladesh, where more than 1 million hectares of rice-growing land is threatened by salination as sea levels rise, food scientists have developed more than 100 salinity-tolerant varieties, but can they stay ahead of a rising Indian Ocean?

Smart as our scientists have been in mitigating the food security challenge created by climate change and global warming, the overall message that we face significant changes in what we eat, where and when seems clear. Some foods will simply be more expensive. Others will be harder to get.

All of us will need to relearn the art of eating with the seasons. In the meantime, our food scientists are going to be extremely busy people.

David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific over the past four decades

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