CROPS PROP FOOD SECURITY

Akila Wijerathna discusses how underutilised crops can help feed the world

The global food system is supported by three crops – rice, wheat and maize – that provide 50 percent of all the calories consumed. According to the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), only 30 plant species provide 95 percent of the world’s food.

Considering that the pool of edible plants is 30,000 species strong – including 7,000 crops cultivated on smallholdings at more local levels – our current food system is not casting a wide net.

In contrast to maize, wheat and rice, which don’t grow well in marginalised areas and frequently require many inputs to thrive, orphan crops require fewer inputs and can be less expensive to cultivate.

Cassava, pigeon pea and millet are underutilised (also known as semi-domesticated, orphan and forgotten) crops that are often grown in Asia, Africa and South America. These also support sustainable farming methods such as multiple cropping and growing in locations where the soil is too exhausted to maintain large-scale grain production.

Since 2015, the number of people who lack regular access to healthy meals has increased. This was the case long before the conflict in Ukraine contributed to a projected global food crisis last year.

In addition, the pandemic aggravated existing global food security difficulties and increased the prevalence of undernourishment by +1.5 percentage points to reach 9.9 percent in 2020.

Small and marginal farmers in subsistence agriculture systems typically cultivate orphan crops. These are nutritionally dense, useful for therapeutic purposes and adapted to low-growing conditions. However, the scientific community has neglected and abandoned these crops due to negligible or nonexistent research and genetic enhancement investments.

In addition, marginal settings have poor soil and are characterised by harsh climatic conditions such as heat, unpredictable precipitation, water deficiency, soil and water salinity, and so on.

Orphan crops are beginning to attract fresh attention as alternative crops for food diversification in marginal habitats – and by extension, worldwide – due to an increase in the frequency of extreme climatic events and continuous land degradation. Increased awareness about the importance of health is also a crucial factor in a renewed interest in orphan crops.

Therefore, the introduction, evaluation and adaptation of exceptional orphan crop varieties for dietary diversification will contribute to sustainable food production and enhanced nutrition in marginal locations.

Due to their different nutritional requirements and local adaptations, these crops are frequently significant to the local community, and constitute a large gene pool for future crop improvement.

As a result, underutilised crops have the potential to contribute significantly to food security. They are being abandoned due to globalisation, migration and other economic forces however, putting them at risk of extinction or losing associated traditional knowledge.

The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) recently reported that reintroducing underutilised crops would provide a more diversified food system that’s less prone to climate-induced scarcities with nutritious and balanced nutrition options for the future.

And the International Centre for Underutilized Crops (ICUC) encourages the use of plant species under threat of this phenomenon. It seeks to establish agricultural land-scapes and markets beneficial to smallholder farmers and local agrarian micro-entrepreneurs, in the tropics and subtropics. Stopping and even reversing biodiversity losses in farming systems is crucial to providing benefits to these farmers.

Higher levels of biodiversity can increase the mean of and decrease any variation in farmer earnings, as well as promote health and nutrition through subsistence use. However, the magnitude of this effect relies on the degree to which diverse production activities complement one another.

Orphan crops are healthy, nutritious and ecosystem friendly. They have proven to be crops with great potential to address food and nutrition shortages, enrich and diversify diets and crop production systems, improve farmers’ livelihoods, and utilise and improve marginal soils.

Complementary mainstreaming of these crops into production systems, genetic enhancement, and continuous development for stress tolerance and resource efficiency, through contempo­rary breeding methods and appro­priate agronomic practices, will significantly increase world crop production.

Recent advancements in genomics and molecular breeding can enhance the genetic potential of orphan crops, and contribute to developing sustainable food systems.

So it’s time to create a road map for future research involvement, and a policy framework with recommendations to facilitate and enhance the acceptance for the sustainable production of orphan crops in agriculturally marginal situations.