Will Deserts Help Us Reach Food-Increase Goals?
All over the world, scientists are looking for ways to increase crop yields with fewer resources. It sounds like an impossible task and, in many ways, it is. At the current population growth rate, researchers expect global food demand to increase 70% by 2050. Even if everyone were to become vegetarian, the available farmland can only support 10 billion people, maximum, and planet Earth is hurtling toward that headcount fast.
To make matters worse, rising temperatures are making it more difficult to source water and ensure optimal growing conditions for crops worldwide. Climate change can even disrupt insect populations and breeding seasons, putting crops at a higher risk of infestation and disease.
Now, scientists are looking to deserts and their drought-resistant plants for solutions that don’t involve chemical applications and inorganic pesticides and fertilizers.
Will deserts help them reach food-increase goals before it’s too late? Time will tell, but exciting innovations in agtech and desert crop discoveries offer promising answers.
Selective Breeding for Drought Resistance
Roughly 767 million people live in extreme poverty and half of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. There, the soil is dry and rural communities rely on a few select crops to survive. In recent years, however, drought has caused food insecurity and famine across the continent. Drought patterns are becoming more unpredictable as the climate changes, so farmers are using selective breeding to increase drought resistance and boost crop yields.
It all starts in developing countries where researchers can garner enough funding to study drought resistance in agriculture. Over the span of about five years, high-tech tractors with sensors measure plant traits like color, height, water content, soil salinity and yield. Farmers and scientists look for the most stable genotypes to use for breeding. Then, producers in developing countries can plant these drought-resistant varieties and have successful harvests, even in the driest, hottest conditions, to increase food security at home.
Succulents May Hold the Secret
If any flora is good at surviving drought, it’s desert plants. That’s why some researchers believe succulents hold the key to reaching food-increase goals. These little guys are great at storing water and they release sugars at night, so they could help out their less heat-resistant cousins if scientists could mass-produce transgenic seeds.
Of course, this process costs millions of dollars, even to make a single seed, so engineering succulents on a large-scale basis may be years, if not decades, away. However, some inventors already have patents on the technology to make it happen. Thus, more water-efficient crops may be within reach, to some degree.
Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria
Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) thrive in dry conditions like the Arabian Peninsula deserts. Here, the microbes promote plant growth activities like nutrient acquisition and stress tolerance. Some strains even regulate ethylene production and pH balance to help plants tolerate salt, which is a huge plus in dry climates.
Many of these PGPRs come from the Middle East, and researchers have sequenced a number of them. Their work provides a platform for genome mining to identify the genes responsible for stress tolerance and other drought-resistance qualities. If they can apply their findings to desert crops within the next few years, these microbes may be able to help other species grow in warmer climates around the globe.
Making It to the Market
Before any newly designed, drought-resistant crop or organic application can go to market and mass production, it must first receive approval from regulatory agencies. Depending on where farmers and innovators submit their applications, this process can take weeks, if not months. Then, agricultural companies must agree to stock and sell the solution, which may take several months more. Only when the majority of farmers adopt the new product or process will it actually help the global population reach its food-increase goals.
They only have so much time to implement them, so it’s a good thing a few promising solutions are already in the works.