Imagine one day you go to the supermarket to do some shopping. You start pushing the trolley and mentally go over your shopping list. You begin placing items in your trolley, a mix of the usual essentials, the must-haves, and a few indulgences with a cheerful ‘go on, treat yourself, love!’. Then suddenly you realise something is not right. There is no spring onion. No avocados. No bananas. No coffee. No rice. No soyabeans. No potatoes. No chickpeas. Hold on! No wine? No chocolate? What da!?
Of course, it will not happen this way. Everything will not suddenly disappear in one day altogether, but surely it will.
There will be museums in the future (not so far) displaying an avocado with the title ‘Last Seen 2050,’ a bowl of rice labelled ‘Last Seen 2054,’ and a bottle of wine from the last vineyard, marked ‘2067.’ It won’t be an art exhibition. It will be real.
When the word ‘endangered’ crosses our minds, we exclusively think about animals: pandas, rhinos, whales, etc., but other life forms such as plants, and also specifically domesticated and edible plants that we consider foods, are also on the verge of extinction.
Out of 20,000 edible plants, and 6,000 that have historically been used as food, fewer than 200 now make a major contribution to food production, and just nine account for two-thirds of food production, according to FAO’s State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture.
To tackle one of humanity’s biggest challenges—producing enough nutritious food for a growing global population—we must conserve and use different crop varieties.
What is Crop Diversity?
When we wander around the fruit and vegetable aisles in the supermarket, most of us are not aware of the fact that what we see is just a small fraction of what could be there. Over the 20th century, we have lost 75% of our crop diversity. The main reason for this dramatic decline is that our industrialised food system focuses on high crop productivity, standardisation, and uniformity rather than diversity.
In the current setting, a handful of multinational companies supply most commercial seeds. These companies focus on a limited variety of seeds, deciding what farmers can grow. A US study revealed that out of 544 types of cabbage in 1903, only 28 survived until 1983. For maize, 307 varieties shrank to just 12, and 408 types of peas dwindled to 25. And the list goes on. Some of these lost varieties might still exist in someone’s garden or in a dusty seed jar, but they’ve disappeared from seed catalogues and commercial farms.
The loss of crop diversity is a serious threat to our food security and health. With the global population expected to swell to around 9.7 billion by 2050, feeding everyone is a daunting challenge. It might seem strange, but focusing only on highly productive crop varieties while ignoring less productive ones actually makes our food supply more vulnerable. Relying on just a few types of crops means the food system can easily be disrupted by droughts, pests, and diseases. In a farming setup where everything’s too similar, if one crucial crop fails, it’s a recipe for catastrophe.
A good example is the Irish potato famine of the 19th century. A large part of the Irish population depended on one type of potato. When a disease struck that potato, most of the harvest was ruined, causing the death of about a million people and forcing another million to leave the country. With climate change, crop failures are expected to become more frequent.
Diverse crop varieties are crucial to addressing this problem. Different crops have different strengths. Some are very productive, while others are more resilient to droughts and diseases. Having lots of different crops makes our food system stronger and keeps our food supply safe.
What are the Gene Banks?
Lately, more people are realising how crucial it is to have different types of crops. To keep this variety safe, we have something called gene banks. You can think of these gene banks like “Noah’s Ark” for seeds. These banks collect and store seeds from all sorts of plants, over 1750 of them worldwide. The most famous one is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway: The ultimate safety deposit box for the world’s crop genetic diversity.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds about one million different types of seeds from all over the world. This huge collection is like a valuable treasure, aiming to protect the variety of plants we grow for food. Each type of seed helps build a big library that might be really important in dealing with future problems like climate change, plant diseases, and other things that could make it hard to grow enough food for everyone.
But is the future of agriculture dependent on Norway now? What can you do rather than waiting for everything to disappear from the face of the world?
If you want to support crop diversity, look out for rare varieties. Farmers’ markets often have a bigger selection, but you might find it easier to access rare seeds to grow in your own garden or balcony. By collecting the seeds, you can even cultivate your own variety, which, over the years, will be adapted to your local conditions.
** The image I used is taken from the animated film Wall-E, released in 2008. It depicts a dystopian future caused by the loss of plant biodiversity and sustainability. It was my son’s favourite film when he was a toddler, and it is still mine. I just love Wall-E.