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Climate change
Opinion
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Outside In | 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

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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
David Dodwell
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.
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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
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.
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