(Food & Environment Reporting Network) The West is mired in a water crisis that’s difficult to fully comprehend. More than 40 million people in seven states and two countries depend on the Colorado River, and its waters are depleting at a terrifying rate. Since the 1900s, flows have decreased by 20 percent, a drop largely associated with climate change. Experts say the situation will only get worse.
For decades, leaders have sought a way to equitably share what’s left of the shrinking supply, but there has always been one stubborn sticking point: Farmers consume three-quarters of the region’s precious water, often to grow thirsty, inedible crops like cotton and hay. Many of them have been here for a century or more, and they aren’t about to leave. So, why can’t they grow something that sucks less water?
….Eventually, I came to a chain-link gate with a warning: “Watch out for snakes.” Behind it, I found a 300-acre desert laboratory operated by the Japanese-owned Bridgestone Corporation where a small team was toiling away, in some sense, on the same question.
…Out back, rows of ragged shrubs grew at varying heights. This was guayule (pronounced why-oo-lee), a plant native to Southwestern deserts that happens to produce latex. From this unassuming outpost, Bridgestone was trying to establish the country’s sole domestic source for the kind of high-grade natural rubber used in airplane tires and surgical gloves — and they were doing it with a crop accustomed to drought.
…The company intends to disrupt a supply line that has for more than a century been milking rubber from musty tropical forests and shift it to the middle of the searing desert. To succeed, this laboratory will have to develop a wundercrop that produces high rubber yields with relatively minuscule amounts of water. But that’s just the start. Bridgestone will also have to develop guayule-specific farm equipment and convince Arizona’s farmers — who cling proudly to their role in providing food and fiber for American families — to produce something that can be neither eaten nor worn. Many companies and the U.S. government have already tried and failed.
Researcher Dave Dierig walks along a row of guayule plants at the Bridgestone Guayule Research Farm outside Eloy, Arizona. Photograph by Bill Hatcher
(University of Copenhagen) The world’s very first cheese robot is on the move and helping a Danish dairy with the quality control of its cheeses.
According to the University of Copenhagen researcher behind the invention, the robot can save dairy companies time and money, while contributing to more sustainable production in the long term.
At Arla’s dairy in Taulov, Denmark, apron-clad dairy workers have been joined by a shiny silver and red-eyed colleague—a robot that helps them produce delicious Danish Havarti, Danbo, and Maribo cheeses.
The robot illuminates the cheeses with near-infrared light through two thin metal tubes that are inserted directly into the soft curd. The light emits back wavelengths that are then stored as data about the cheese on a computer.
“Analyzing the light allows us to map the chemical fingerprints of a cheese—including its fat, protein, and carbohydrate content, among other things. In doing so, we can always see whether cheeses meet the dairy’s quality standards vis-à-vis safety, texture, and taste,” explains Klavs Martin Sørensen, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen’s food science department.
(Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) More than 20 years after the first release of the human genome, scientists at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, have for the first time decoded the highly complex genome of the potato. This technically demanding study lays the biotechnological foundation to accelerate the breeding of more robust varieties - a goal in plant breeding for many years and an important step for global food security.
When shopping for potatoes on a market today, buyers may well be going home with a variety that was already available more than 100 years ago. Traditional potato varieties are popular. And yet this example also highlights a lack of diversity among the predominant potato varieties. However, that could soon change: researchers in the group of geneticist Korbinian Schneeberger were able to generate the first full assembly of a potato genome. This paves the way for breeding new, robust varieties:
“The potato is becoming more and more integral to diets worldwide including even Asian countries like China where rice is the traditional staple food. Building on this work, we can now implement genome-assisted breeding of new potato varieties that will be more productive and also resistant to climate change – this could have a huge impact on delivering food security in the decades to come”.
Especially the low diversity makes potato plants susceptible to diseases. This can have stark consequences, most dramatically during the Irish famine of the 1840s, where for several years nearly the entire potato crop rotted in the ground, and millions of people in Europe suffered from starvation simply because the single variety that was grown was not resistant to newly emerging tuber blight. During the Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, scientists and plant breeders succeeded in achieving large increases in the yields of many of our major crop staples like rice or wheat. However, the potato has seen no comparable boost, and efforts to breed new varieties with higher yields have remained largely unsuccessful to the current day.
(Vox) Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, is known for spearheading hostile takeovers of underperforming companies on Wall Street, so it seemed odd when he bought a small stake in McDonald’s and last month nominated two new directors to its board, since the company has outperformed its fast food competitors in recent years.
But Icahn’s rancor wasn’t directed at the company’s financial performance. Rather, it was directed at how pigs in the company’s supply chain are treated.
The fight has made headlines in the business press in recent weeks, but its origins go back a decade. In 2012, after pressure from Icahn and the Humane Society of the US, McDonald’s pledged that it would end the use of gestation crates for pregnant pigs — which confine the animals so tightly they are unable to turn around for months at a time — throughout its supply chain by the end of 2022.
Now that 2022 has arrived, Icahn argues the company is far from following through on its commitment, and he’s ready to take action.
(TechCrunch) Procuring items to fill the shelves of local stores is not an easy task in Latin America. Orders are mostly still done on paper or over the phone, and sometimes store owners have to drive to the wholesaler to get their orders.
Cayena founders Gabriel Sendacz, Pedro Carvalho and Raymond Shayo believe injecting technology into procurement will make the process much simpler for food preparation facilities, like restaurants, bars, bakeries, hotels and dark kitchens, in their home country of Brazil and across the region.
“Latin American B2B is a massive market, but it is fragmented when it comes to supply and demand,” Shayo told TechCrunch. “About 90% of our customers are small and medium, independent and family-owned businesses. On the supplier side, there are thousands of distributors all with different products, but they have less than 1% of the market share.”
In contrast, the United States has large foodservice companies, like Sysco, U.S. Foods and Gordon Food Service, which hold around 10% market share and offer a one-stop shop for everything from food to cleaning supplies.
Further Extract:
…they created a business-to-business marketplace, targeting the $100 billion wholesale food industry in Latin America, that enables users to source inventory from multiple suppliers at one time and get orders delivered the next day. It is also offering add-on services like buy now, pay later financing.
(Futurity) US agricultural systems are world leaders in the production of food, fuel, and fiber. This high level of production enables consumers to spend an average of only 8.6% of their disposable income on food, a percentage that has trended downward since 1960.
Growing evidence, however, shows that many hidden costs of cheap food may be passed on through factors such as reduced nutritional content, environmental degradation, and the diminishing livelihoods of US farm operators.
“It’s not that agriculture as a sector is not profitable,” says lead author Emily Burchfield, assistant professor in the environmental sciences department at Emory University. “It’s that, despite hard work and significant financial risk, many of the people who operate US farms are not able to make a decent living at it.”
Rising input costs, shrinking production values, commodity specialization, and challenges to land access all appear to be connected to declining farm operator livelihoods, the new study in Frontiers of Sustainable Food Systems concludes.
“We’ve shown in a quantitative, systematic way the extent to which these trends are happening and, in many cases, how they appear to be worsening,” Burchfield says.
Last edited by caltrek on Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
(Futurity) Results of the preliminary experiment, which included 10 farms across the US, show that the crops from farms following soil-friendly practices for at least five years had a healthier nutritional profile than the same crops grown on neighboring, conventional farms.
The results showed a boost in certain minerals, vitamins, and phytochemicals that benefit human health.
“We couldn’t find studies that related directly to how the health of the soil affects what gets into crops,” says lead author David Montgomery, a professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington. “So we did the experiment that we wished was out there.”
Montgomery designed the study during research for his upcoming book, What Your Food Ate (W.W. Norton & Company, 2022) due out in June. His spouse, Anne Biklé, is a biologist and coauthor of the study and the upcoming book.
The researchers collaborated with farmers using regenerative farming practices to conduct an experiment. All the participating farms, mostly in the Midwest and in the Eastern US, agreed to grow one acre of a test crop—peas, sorghum, corn, or soybeans—for comparison with the same crop grown on a neighboring farm using conventional agriculture.
Potentially High Fertilizer Costs: Here’s What the Situation in Ukraine Means for U.S. Agriculture by Johnathan Hettinger and Madison McVan
March 3, 2022
(Investigate Midwest) As Ukraine continues to fight against Russian forces, experts warned of potential fallout for the U.S. agriculture industry.
On Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine, and Russian troops stormed into the country.
Reportedly, tens of thousands have died, and about half a million people have fled their homes, according to The New York Times.
The same day as Putin’s announcement, Ukraine's military halted all commercial activities at its ports in the Black Sea. Also that day, a missile struck a ship chartered by Cargill, according to Reuters.
Multinational agricultural corporations stopped operations in Ukraine as farmers expect the Russian invasion of the country — and the subsequent economic sanctions — to drive up already high prices for fertilizer, a key input for U.S. growers, according to interviews and company statements.
“That region of the world is a pretty significant producer of key fertilizers or key components to fertilizer, so that is definitely on the minds of farmers,” said Garrett Hawkins, the Missouri Farm Bureau president.
One interesting observation in the body of the article (see link above quote box) is that soy beans require relatively small amounts of fertilizer. So many farmers might switch to this crop, in which case presumably soy bean prices could drop.
(Investigate Midwest) There are three kinds of fertilizers commonly used around the world, and Russia is a top producer of all of them.
Following the country's invasion of Ukraine, Russia's position among the top fertilizer producers has sparked fears of skyrocketing prices. The United Nations has warned the global fertilizer market could suffer "considerable disruptions" (though other experts have said it's too soon to tell).
The situation has already garnered action from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It announced Friday it would invest $250 million into fertilizer production in the U.S.
“Recent supply chain disruptions from the global pandemic to Putin’s unprovoked war against Ukraine have shown just how important it is to invest in this crucial link in the agricultural supply chain here at home,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
The world's other wheat producers can't increase their own production levels to compensate for the loss of Russian and Ukrainian wheat on the global market.
“It will impact millions and millions of people, particularly in the poorest countries of the world,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley told The Associated Press in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv last week as he visited a refugee center where food aid was distributed.
There are unanswered questions about how Western sanctions on Russia, the world’s top wheat exporter, could affect its grain exports and distribution networks. Russia is also the biggest exporter of fertilizer, while Ukraine ships huge amounts of corn, rye, oats and millet. The Black Sea region is a top producer of the grains used to feed livestock worldwide.
Australia and India have responded with increased grain exports, but there’s little room for others to immediately do the same. That’s mainly due to recurrent drought, said Arnaud Petit, executive director of the International Grains Council.
The U.S. produced around 44 million tons of wheat for the 2021-2022 season. Just two to three years ago, it was over 50 million tons. Petit pointed to drought and farmers switching to more profitable crops.
Canada, Argentina and Australia could try to ramp up wheat production for the coming season that ends in mid-2023, but it’s too early to tell if farmers are changing their planting patterns to focus more on grains like wheat.
Doug Martin said it’s too late for his family farm in Manitoba, Canada, to make significant changes to what’s being planted now. Plus, growing a range of crops spreads out risks.
“Most producers have a set idea of what they are seeding and will probably stick to that,” Martin said.
Although higher wheat prices will reap earnings for farmers, that isn’t enough incentive to expand production because prices are also climbing for crops like oats, canola and barely.
“There are other crops that are going to get good returns,” Martin added.
(Axios) It’s Groundhog Day — that is, if you’re watching the recent boom in ultra-fast grocery delivery services whose success hinges on achieving extraordinarily high order volumes, just like a generation of on-demand services hoped to a few years ago.
Why it matters: We’re already seeing market consolidation, companies going out of business, and desperation for new cash infusions as the realities of the ultra-fast grocery delivery business model set in.
The big picture: Over the past year or so, a number of companies promising to deliver grocery and convenience items in a matter of minutes have cropped up in U.S. cities. Some had already been operating in Europe, too.
The pandemic’s restrictions were a boon for all kinds of delivery businesses while people were stuck at home.
Conclusion:
The bottom line: Margins in grocery delivery remain very slim.
Field tests show that knockout of KRN2 in maize or OsKRN2 in rice increased grain yield by ~10% and ~8%, respectively, with no apparent trade-off in other agronomic traits. This suggests potential applications of KRN2 and its orthologs for crop improvement.
(Food & Environment Reporting Network) When Grubhub came to Iowa City in 2017, Jon Sewell got what he describes as a “call to action.” He owns a D.P. Dough franchise there and had been using a delivery service called OrderUp to get his calzones to college students. But then Grubhub bought OrderUp and doubled the commission on orders to an astronomical 30 percent, plus fees. At those rates, Sewell says, he lost money on every order.
So in January 2018, Sewell joined forces with about 25 Iowa City restaurant owners who chipped in to launch their own delivery co-op called Chomp. The business, which now employs five to seven people full time and about 100 independent drivers, caps commissions at 15 percent, redistributes profits to the co-op members, and offers local customer service, which Grubhub had outsourced.
Sewell’s local experiment has national implications. At the start of the pandemic, food delivery apps, including the “Big 3” — Grubhub, Uber Eats, and DoorDash — were hailed as saviors, facilitating a takeout boom meant to keep restaurants and their staffs working. But eateries were quickly confronted by a harsh reality: These Silicon Valley and Wall Street–backed firms, which together dominate 93 percent of the market share nationwide, are designed to scrape money out of local businesses — sucking up a combined $9.5 billion in revenues in 2020 alone — and send it to shareholders. Meanwhile, without dine-in customers, some restaurants were trapped in a money-losing proposition; 110,000 of them closed, either permanently or long-term, in the first year of the pandemic.
“The majority of consumers really want to support locally owned restaurants,” says Kennedy Smith, a senior researcher at the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ISLR). “They think that by ordering food through the big delivery apps, they’re supporting them. It’s actually not, and that’s a real disconnect.”
(EurekAlert) Cacao has long been a sought-after raw material for the worlds food industry. At first glance, it therefore seems surprising that biology knows little about the pollination of the cacao tree – although it is precisely this process that is the basis for fruit set and ultimately for the yield.
At second glance, however, one quickly understands why the pollination of this tropical crop holds so many secrets: cacao flowers are very small and are usually found by the thousands on a tree. The insects that gather at the flowers are also tiny and very diverse in terms of species. All these factors make systematic observations difficult.
Study in the north and south of Peru
A new study now brings more clarity. It was conducted in Peru by an international research team at the Chair of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg, Germany. The leading project organization was Bioversity International, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) funded the project.
South America is the native region of the cacao tree, which occurs there in the undergrowth of tropical rainforests. In agriculture, too, the cacao tree is planted in the shade of larger trees, in so-called agroforestry systems. The researchers applied glue to cacao flowers in 20 such systems in northern and southern Peru to investigate which animals visit the flowers. They also analysed the influence of the degree of shading and the distance to the nearest forest on visitor activity at the flowers.
The results have been published in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence.
(EurekAlert) When coffee is sold as single origin or as the more expensive Arabica beans— do you really know whether you are getting what you’re paying for? Different coffee-producing regions need to enforce the standards and reputation of their coffee; thus, there is a growing industry looking at different technologies to more accurately classify and test coffee beans from different origins. Researchers in Columbia from Universidad del Valle and Universidad del Atlantico and the company Almacafe have taken steps toward making it easier to validate the variety under which the coffee is being sold. For this, they analyzed hundreds of coffee samples from multiple countries using highly sensitive Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), and made these data broadly available in an inexpensive and interactive manner; thus, allowing researchers to look at their coffee to see ‘what’s in that cup’ (or should be.) This study was published in the open science journal GigaByte1.
NMR is an extremely sensitive technique that provides very detailed information, down to the level of molecular structure, about the contents of any sample analyzed. NMR has long been the gold standard in medical and pharmacology studies for content identification, but it is less often used in the food industry as it has been far too expensive for more general use. To open up the use of this technique in the coffee sector, the researchers here gathered 715 coffee samples from 27 different countries and used NMR to obtain detailed information on the content of those samples. They then made all of these data openly available for general use.
The researchers have primarily been engaged in using their technique to aid the Colombian Coffee Federation to enforce the Protected Geographical Indication (GPI) that monitors agricultural products, such as Columbian coffee, whose quality and reputation is linked to a specific geographical area. For this they have primarily been involved in using different technologies to classify coffee beans from different origins. However, it quickly became apparent to the scientists that NMR could also give very accurate information about coffee quality.
Lead author Julien Wist from Universidad del Valle noted that “Although roasting is very important as it can ruin the best beans, it is impossible to make good coffee out of bad beans.”
New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April), suggests that disease-causing amoebas that live on organic leafy vegetables can shelter human pathogens like Pseudomonas, Salmonella, and Helicobacter and are a potential risk to public health. The study is by Dr Yolanda Moreno and colleagues from Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain.
Foodborne illness from consuming contaminated fresh produce is common and can have serious effects on human health, especially when eaten raw. There is a growing demand for organically grown fruit and vegetables as people strive to eat healthy diets and amid concerns over potential contamination from pesticides, chemical fertilisers and herbicides. However, during growth, harvest, transportation and further processing and handling, fresh produce can be contaminated with pathogens from human or animal sources, through contact with soil, irrigation water, air, rain, insects, and during industrial produce-washing.
Vegetables can become contaminated with certain protozoa (single-celled organisms) such as free-living amoebae (FLA), that feed on bacteria and can act as hosts to pathogenic bacteria (the so-called “Trojan horses") which resist FLA digestion and could be a threat to public health.
“Food and food-related environments create an ideal meeting place for free-living amoebae and pathogenic bacteria”, explains Dr. Moreno. “However, comparatively little is known about the occurrence and diversity of free-living amoebae on organic vegetables and their role in transmitting human pathogens.”
To conduct a preliminary study of the FLA microbiome isolated from organic vegetables, researchers collected 17 samples of lettuce and spinach from local supermarkets in Valencia between November 2020 and May 2021
caltrek's comment: To me, this doesn't come across as particularly new or surprising. It almost sounds like a corporate agriculture financed study to discredit organic food. Still, it should serve as a cautionary note to those who handle and sell such produce as well as vendors to take those precautions that our grandmothers recommended to us in handling produce. This goes for both conventionally grown as well as organically grown items.
(EurekAlert) Pollination by insects is essential for the production of many food crops. The presence of pollinators, such as bees, depends on the availability of nesting sites and sufficient food. If these conditions are lacking, the pollinators also fail to appear and the yield of flowering arable crops, such as broad beans or oilseed rape, suffers as well. A team from the University of Göttingen and the Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) in Braunschweig has investigated how the composition of flowering crops and semi-natural habitats in the landscape affects the density of bees, their behaviour when collecting nectar, and the faba bean (Vicia faba) yields. The results of the study have been published in the journal Basic and Applied Ecology.
The researchers show that in landscapes with a high proportion of semi-natural habitats and in landscapes with a high proportion of faba beans, more bumblebees were found in the bean fields. In addition, the bean yields were higher here. The scientists recorded and observed the foraging behaviour of honeybees and wild bees in bean fields in agricultural landscapes with different landscape compositions. They also worked out the parameters for the yield for an individual plant. "Insect pollination has a positive effect on faba bean yields. Our investigations showed around 34 percent more beans per pod in insect-pollinated plants compared to plants that were inaccessible to insects," explains Dr Doreen Gabriel from the JKI.
"The pollination success in faba beans does not only depend on the density of bees in the fields, but also on the particular bee species collecting nectar. Bumblebee species who have a short proboscis often steal nectar from faba beans by biting holes in the calyxes (the outer sepals that protect the flower bud). In contrast, the bumblebee species who have a longer proboscis collect nectar regularly from the front of the flower, resulting in increased rates of cross-pollination. However, there are hardly any studies that have investigated whether the behaviour of bees collecting nectar is also influenced by the availability and distribution of other resources in the landscape, that is the composition of the landscape," says first author Dr Nicole Beyer, who did her PhD at the University of Göttingen and now works at the Thünen Institute in Braunschweig.
(EurekAlert) A new global study of Indigenous oyster fisheries co-led by Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History anthropologist Torben Rick and Temple University anthropologist and former Smithsonian postdoctoral fellow Leslie Reeder-Myers shows that oyster fisheries were hugely productive and sustainably managed on a massive scale over hundreds and even thousands of years of intensive harvest. The study’s broadest finding was that long before European colonizers arrived, the Indigenous groups in these locations harvested and ate immense quantities of oysters in a manner that did not appear to cause the bivalves’ populations to suffer and crash.
The research, published May 3 in Nature Communications, suggests that studying these ancient, sustainable fisheries offers insights to help restore and manage estuaries today. Further, the authors write that these findings make plain that Indigenous peoples in these locations had deep connections to oysters and that their living descendants are long overdue to be involved in decisions about how to manage what is left of this precious coastal resource.
In places like the Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay and Botany Bay near Sydney, oysters exist at tiny fractions of their former numbers. Oyster numbers declined in these places due to boom and bust exploitation—beginning with European colonizers establishing commercial fisheries that quickly raked in huge quantities of oysters, and ending with cratering oyster populations that were also being devastated by habitat alteration, disease and introduced species.
But these parables of ecological collapse wrought by colonization and capitalism often omit evidence of Indigenous fisheries that predated those of European settlers by thousands of years.
Rick said the new paper expands on a seminal 2004 paper that documented the collapses of 28 oyster fisheries located along the east and west coasts of North America and Australia’s east coast. But the 2004 paper’s timeline in each location begins with European colonists’ creation of commercial oyster fisheries.
Karkangee Hibiscus Drink Launches in Maine
by Ulya Aligulova
May 6, 2022
Introduction:
(Amjambo Africa!) When Bishara Alkher arrived in the United States as a refugee in 2006 he had no idea that one day he’d be an entrepreneur launching Karkangee, a hibiscus beverage, with dreams to reach all 50 states with his product. But 16 years later, after years of labor, that is exactly what has happened. Karkangee launched earlier this month and has already been picked up for sale by Coffee by Design, the award-winning coffee house and roastery with three locations in Portland and Freeport. Alkher hopes to expand to more retailers, including grocery stores, soon.
Karkangee (or karkanji), which means hibiscus, is thought to have originated from Chadian cuisine, but is a popular drink all over North and Central Africa and Jamaica. The beverage is rich in antioxidants and is believed to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol as well as aiding in digestion. Studies have shown that hibiscus has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. In addition, hibiscus extract may also help with weight loss, according to some studies. But most importantly, Alkher said that beverages made from hibiscus are delicious, and he wants people in the U.S. to enjoy Karkangee, and for Africans and Jamaicans who miss it, to enjoy a taste of home.
“We have this hibiscus drink at home that I really love, which is drunk daily in Sudan, Chad, Egypt, and Central Africa, particularly during Ramadan,” Alkher said. “So one day I went to the market to see if I could find it, but all I found was dried hibiscus that the drink is made out of. So I bought some and came home and prepared the drink myself. That got me wondering. There are so many people from Africa in the U.S., and the market is huge and yet you can’t find this drink anywhere. So why don’t I put it on the market?”
A Shrinking Fraction of the World’s Major Crops Goes to Feed the Hungry, with More Used for Nonfood Purposes
By Deepak Ray
(The Conversation) Rising competition for many of the world’s important crops is sending increasing amounts toward uses other than directly feeding people. These competing uses include making biofuels; converting crops into processing ingredients, such as livestock meal, hydrogenated oils and starches; and selling them on global markets to countries that can afford to pay for them.
In a newly published study, my co-authors and I estimate that in 2030, only 29% of the global harvests of 10 major crops may be directly consumed as food in the countries where they were produced, down from about 51% in the 1960s. We also project that, because of this trend, the world is unlikely to achieve a top sustainable development goal: ending hunger by 2030.
Another 16% of harvests of these crops in 2030 will be used as feed for livestock, along with significant portions of the crops that go to processing. This ultimately produces eggs, meat and milk – products that typically are eaten by middle- and upper-income people, rather than those who are undernourished. Diets in poor countries rely on staple foods like rice, corn, bread and vegetable oils.
The crops that we studied – barley, cassava, maize (corn), oil palm, rapeseed (canola), rice, sorghum, soybean, sugar cane and wheat – together account for more than 80% of all calories from harvested crops. Our study shows that calorie production in these crops increased by more than 200% between the 1960s and the 2010s.
Today, however, harvests of crops for processing, exports and industrial uses are booming. By 2030, we estimate that processing, export and industrial-use crops will likely account for 50% of harvested calories worldwide. When we add the calories locked in crops used as animal feed, we calculate that by 2030, roughly 70% of all harvested calories of these top 10 crops will go to uses other than directly feeding hungry people.
