Feeding
the future.
Faulty food systems are one of humanity’s greatest current challenges, with a third of global greenhouse gas emissions accounted for by how we produce, transport, prepare and dispose of what we eat. Could science – the perpetual disruptor – and solutions-based thinking around plant genetics and crop adaptation hold the key to resilience and ease the climate crisis?
POSSIBILITIES
“Food is finally on the table,” said Danielle Nierenberg, president of non-profit thinktank Food Tank after COP28 finally addressed the elephant in the room with a day devoted to food and agriculture for the very first time, as well as a declaration on sustainable agriculture signed by more than 130 countries. “Now we have this ability to talk about food systems as a solution to the climate crisis in a way that we haven’t ever had the chance to before.”
In a big step forward, acknowledging sustainable agriculture as a vital part of the necessary response to climate change, the UN said that reforming the world’s food systems would be a key step in limiting global temperature rises. It also presented, via its Food and Agriculture Organization, a three-year road map detailing a global vision for year one, a more regional view with costings for year two, and country action plans complete with monitoring and accountability for year three (COP30).
“Food production is the single most important industrial system on the planet, so it is extremely concerning that many commentators are describing our system as ‘broken’ and requiring nothing short of complete system transformation to put things right,” says Dave Hughes, Global Head of Technology Identification and Evaluation for Crop Protection at leading agriculture tech company, Syngenta. It’s Hughes’ job to think about how we might produce enough food for 10 billion people in the most environmentally sustainable way possible. “Our best guess,” he says, “is that by 2050 we will need to produce about one and a half times as much food every year as we were producing in 2010.”
Given that we produce more food per person than at any time in history, what is it that’s wrong with the system? Even if food was equitably distributed, which it isn’t (800 million of the world’s population remain chronically malnourished), we still don’t produce enough to feed everyone a healthy diet, and the system is having major detrimental impacts on our environment. It produces too much pollution, especially by way of fertilisers which can cause algal blooms in rivers and lead to dead zones in estuaries, it produces a third of the world’s greenhouse gases, has led to soil degradation, and contributes to biodiversity decline when natural habitats and ecosystems are destroyed natural habitats to create farmland.
Our best guess is that by 2050 we will need to produce about one and a half times as much food every year as we were producing in 2010.
Dave Hughes
Global Head of Technology Identification and Evaluation for Crop Protection, Syngenta
The food system accounts for one-third of the world’s greenhouse gases.
“Climate change is likely to severely compromise our ability to grow crops, as sea levels rise and inundate coastal farmland, climate zones shift and restrict what crops can be grown where, and extreme weather events become more common and intense,” says Hughes. “When fossil fuel use is phased out, every carbon-based feedstock for every industry around the world will ultimately have to come from photosynthesis, with the raw materials for medicines, chemicals, polymers, textiles, liquid fuels – everything that contains carbon – needing to be derived from plants somehow. Where are all those plants going to grow?”
We need to produce more food, from less land and in a much more environmentally friendly way, while resisting the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change.
“It is clear to me that no farming system ever yet invented can rise to this challenge, so retreating back to traditional farming systems is not the answer,” Hughes continues, suggesting that we must innovate instead to make crops more robust to cope with difficult environmental conditions.
Today, tiny, targeted changes can be made to the DNA in our crop plants – most elite varieties of which have wild relatives that are as tough as old boots, having evolved to survive in a hostile environment. If we compare the DNA of the elite crop and the wild relative and can identify the differences responsible for the toughness of the wild plant, we can engineer those changes into the elite crop to make it tougher while still retaining all the beneficial properties of an elite crop. It’s an approach that has already been used to make crop plants more tolerant of drought, heat, salt, diseases and insect pests, and can also be used to improve the quality properties of crops that consumers care about: increasing nutrient levels, improving flavour, removing allergens or natural toxins, enhancing shelf-life so food doesn’t go off as quickly.
“These things have all been done: there are now tomatoes on sale in Japan that have been engineered this way to produce enhanced levels of a natural chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid which lowers blood pressure,” says Hughes, “so we are now seeing foods designed to have specific health benefits beyond simple nutrition.”
Nuisance callers
Pest control is another point in the system at which we can intervene to improve the productivity of farming. Currently, despite all our fancy technologies, about one third of all planted crops are destroyed before harvest by insect pests, fungal diseases and weeds in the field. If we can get that figure close to zero, it would mean a 50% increase in food production on the same land and with the same resources.
It’s easier said than done, with the key to pest control being diversity – farmers need as many diverse ways to control pests as possible to prevent the evolution of resistance.
“There are some interesting new approaches to pest control that are soon going to hit the market, based on exploiting recent discoveries in fundamental biology,” says Hughes. “In the late 1990s, a new kind of immune system was discovered in all multicellular organisms, designed to fight off viruses. It works by recognizing the presence of viral genetic material in the cell. If it finds any, the cell triggers a process to destroy it before the virus can take hold.
“We have found a way of tricking this immune system into thinking that its own natural genetic material is actually derived from a virus, hence triggering an auto-immune response that ultimately destroys a cell.”
The first product of this type is due to hit the market later this year – for controlling Colorado potato beetle in the USA. “The beauty of this strategy is that the trick involves creating an exact match to the DNA of the beetle. But the DNA sequence of the Colorado potato beetle is unique to that species, so that such pesticides designed to kill the Colorado potato beetle are highly effective but completely non-toxic to every other organism – even closely related beetles.”
Today, tiny, targeted changes can be made to the DNA in our crop plants – most elite varieties of which have wild relatives that are as tough as old boots, having evolved to survive in a hostile environment.
Dave Hughes
Global Head of Technology Identification and Evaluation for Crop Protection, Syngenta
Colorado potato beetle larvas. Image courtesy of Syngenta
If we can just survive the next few decades without some kind of catastrophic Malthusian collapse of the global food system, then we can anticipate the situation easing
Dave Hughes
Global Head of Technology Identification and Evaluation for Crop Protection, Syngenta
Precision application
To lower the potential for harm from pesticides, we could think about ways of reducing the amount of material required to achieve the desired effect. In-field analytics involves generating and integrating data streams from sensors in the field and images taken of the field to enable the farmer to understand what is going on in the field at levels of both temporal and special resolution that would not have been possible in the past.
“For example,” says Hughes, “plants have been genetically engineered to fluoresce when they are under stress. This fluorescence can be detected by satellites in space, and the location of the stressed plants can be beamed down to the farmer, accurate to within a square metre. It is also now possible to link that data through to actuator systems that can apply inputs like chemicals onto the field exactly when and where needed, rather than spraying everything, everywhere all at once. So, in principle, the same outcomes can be achieved with far lower amounts of those inputs required.”
The same approach can be taken with fertilisers too, greatly reducing the potential for them to create dead zones in waterways. Nitrogen fertilisers, in particular, are responsible for a large proportion of the greenhouse gases from agriculture, so it would be highly desirable to eliminate the use of synthetic nitrogen in agriculture if we can. How might that be possible?
“It is well known that leguminous crops have root systems that can be colonised by bacteria that can convert nitrogen from the air into soluble forms that plants can use,” says Hughes. “Imagine if we could find bacteria that could do the same thing but for any crop. Several new classes of bacteria have been found which can fix nitrogen from the air, so if you coat a seed with these bacteria before you plant it, the emerging plant can be colonised by these bacteria which then provide most of the nitrogen the plant needs directly from the air. The most promising of these new bacteria has been genetically optimised using the same technology I mentioned earlier in the context of modifying crops.”
The most recent UN population estimate is more optimistic than in the past – forecast to rise from 8 billion today, to a peak of 10.4 billion in the 2080s before starting to decline slowly. “If we can just survive the next few decades without some kind of catastrophic Malthusian collapse of the global food system, then we can anticipate the situation easing,” says Hughes.
Humanity’s chances of surviving this century in a society which is similar or even better than what exists today? “I’m cautiously optimistic, but it depends critically on the successful implementation of new technologies at scale.”
LEARN MORE Watch: David Hughes talk at Designing the Future 2024. | Hoare Lea
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Left: Crop scouting using a drone. Right: Evaluating new wheat varieties. Images courtesy of Sygenta
Against the grain: crop breeding across the continents. Damaris Odeny, Plant Geneticist, Kenya.
Kenyan plant geneticist Damaris Odeny has global research experience cutting across Africa, Asia, Europe and USA and is principal scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, which conducts agricultural research for rural development. The daughter of a sugarcane grower, she completed a BSc in agriculture at the University of Nairobi, majoring in economics in her final year, and followed up her undergraduate studies with a Masters in plant genetics. “When I sat for my first serious lessons in plant genetics, everything clicked,” she says. “I loved it and wanted to pursue it for the rest of my life.” With overdependence on a few crops one of agriculture’s biggest problems right now, Damaris has been investigating alternative grains.
Why did you choose to specialise in this area?
Damaris
Partly because I found it more applied and directly addressing the problem of hunger, but also partly because I grew up on a farm and saw the struggles of my parents in sustaining a decent livelihood from it. I wanted to be in a position where I understood their challenges and attempted to address them through the study of plant genetics.
What have you been doing in the field of crop breeding, and helping plants to deal with the stresses they face?
Damaris
My work revolves around crops that are considered climate resilient, which means they can grow, and sometimes even thrive, under difficult environments. My research involves looking for genes responsible for better adaptation to such environments and how those genes can be introduced into varieties that taste good, are liked by farmers and are also nutritious. In some cases, I also look for these genes from wild relatives of the target crops, which may have even better resilience.
What are finger millet, sorghum and pigeonpea and why are they significant?
Damaris
Finger millet is a highly nutritious small gluten-free grain mainly grown in Africa and Asia, although has a wide adaptation to a broad range of environments. It is grown mainly for its nutritious grain but has other uses including as feed, fodder and medicine. Finger millet is important because of its high micronutrient content and ability to grow under difficult environments. Sorghum is also a small drought-tolerant, gluten-free grain (but larger than finger millet), that is nutritious and can be used for several purposes – as food, feed, fodder, biofuel, beverage, building material. Sorghum is especially important due to its low water and nutrient requirement and has recently been shown to produce large amounts of certain compounds that enable it to more efficiently take up nitrogen that is available in the soil.
Pigeonpea is drought tolerant, highly nutritious, contributes nutrient to the soil and can be used in many different ways.
How can developing crop resilience help with the climate crisis?
Damaris
In so many ways. Resilient crops promise poor farmers with no irrigation some harvest despite the erratic and unpredictability of rain due to climate change. Resilient crops also have higher thermotolerance index so can survive under extreme heat. Resilient crops can survive under low input, which means that farmers do not need to add synthetic fertilizer every season. The addition of synthetic fertilizers result in underground water contamination, and the production of nitrous oxide, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases in the world. Some resilient crops such as finger millet have flooding tolerance and can survive under waterlogged conditions. Waterlogging is one of the effects of climate change affecting agriculture. Resilient crops can also survive under saline and acid soil conditions, which are increasingly the case for agricultural soils with climate change. Climate-resilient legumes also add nutrient to the soil and enhance the health of the soils reducing the need for synthetic fertiliser.
What do you see as the barriers to mass adoption of climate-resilient crops? Are they economic, social, political?
Damaris
Lack of familiarity with the crops, how to cook them, recipes, taste etc. Lack of role models within communities championing their use. Lack of information on their health and climate benefits. Low research investment to enhance seed availability to farmers.
Are there any developments that have encouraged you recently in crop resilience?
Damaris
The renewed interest from major investors, such as Jeff Bezos, in addition to existing efforts.
How do you deal with the pressure of trying to solve a huge global challenge?
Damaris
Taking it one day at a time and keeping focused. Most importantly, being a living example.
When I sat for my first serious lessons in plant genetics, everything clicked, I loved it and wanted to pursue it for the rest of my life.
Is there anyone currently disrupting the agriculture industry that you admire?
Damaris
Ed Buckler from Cornell University. [Ed is a USDA-ARS research geneticist and professor in plant breeding and genetics. His group’s research uses genomic, computational, and field approaches to dissect complex traits and accelerate breeding in maize, sorghum, cassava, and a wide range of other crops. While these technologies have already been applied to over 2000 species, now the Buckler group focuses on exploring ways to re-engineer global agricultural production systems to ensure food security, improve nutrition, and respond to climate change. Extremely smart yet so practical in his research implementation. He is also so kind, humble and very approachable.
You have mentored many young scientists; why is this? What have they taught you?
Damaris
They are bright, talented, innovative and have been seriously left out in the past. They are the future. I have learnt a whole lot from them; a lot of science but also to be patient, humble, kind and genuinely interested in people’s broader lives. At the end of the day, we are social beings needing compassion in order to thrive.
What does exploration mean to you?
Damaris
Getting into a world of discovery, whether outdoor hiking with family, or in the lab setting out an innovative experiment.
What’s next?
Damaris
More research. This is what I was created for and I thoroughly enjoy what I do. I just wish I could get a little bit more funding to get a lot more done. I am currently struggling to implement even the slightest of experiments due to lack of funds.
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