planted city

From Eco-Business:

Farm chiefs have a narrowing chance to diversify vital crops at rising threat from drought, flood and pests brought by climate change, food researchers warned on Monday.

The world’s nearly 7 billion people are massively dependent on a dozen or so crops that, thanks to modern agriculture, are intensively cultivated in a tiny number of strains, they said.

When climate change gets into higher gear, many of these strains could be crippled by hotter and drier – or conversely wetter – weather and exposed to insects and microbial pests that advance into new habitats.

“Farmers have always adapted, but the pace of change under climate change is going to be much greater than in the past. There’s going to be a real need to move fast,” said Bruce Campbell, head of a research programme called Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

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The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) estimates Earth’s surface will probably warm by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius over the 21st century.

Campbell said many scientists suspect that climate change is already well on the march, as evidenced by shifts in rainfall patterns and growing seasons in many observed locations.

He cautioned against “waiting 10 years” before the world moves to diversify plant strains.

“There are two sorts of changes that are going to happen. One is a gradual temperature increase, the other is the extremes, extremes of heat and floods, and I think they are already here. In the meteorological records, there are so many extremes that are being beaten, although it’s very difficult to pin them to climate change.”

The adaptation strategies are being published in a compendium book, Crop Adaptation to Climate Change.

(Image credit: Treehugger)

Infographic: ‘Our Dwindling Food Variety’

From National Geographic:

As we’ve come to depend on a handful of commercial varieties of fruits and vegetables, thousands of heirloom varieties have disappeared. It’s hard to know exactly how many have been lost over the past century, but a study conducted in 1983 by the Rural Advancement Foundation International gave a clue to the scope of the problem. It compared USDA listings of seed varieties sold by commercial U.S. seed houses in 1903 with those in the U.S. National Seed Storage Laboratory in 1983. The survey, which included 66 crops, found that about 93 percent of the varieties had gone extinct. More up-to-date studies are needed.

The infographic accompanies the feature article ‘Food Ark’, which looks at efforts to protect and enhance the global food supply. Also included with the article are sections on some amazing ‘Seeds Worth Saving’ and how to ‘Grow Your Own Heirlooms’.