The peppery spider plant might be on more dinner plates in sub-Saharan Africa as researchers identify plants that can withstand changing growing conditions partly caused by our planet's overheating.
The work to find highly nutritious alternatives to corn, rice, cassava, and yams is detailed by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and in a story by Mongabay.
At issue is our changing climate, which is contributing to food price spikes and shortages for certain products around the world, including olive oil and vegetables.
In Africa, the spider plant Cleome gynandra (not to be confused with the houseplant Chlorophytum comosum) is among 52 species that experts think can provide healthy meals even decades from now, per the reports. These "forgotten" crops can help to fill the gap as mainstream produce struggles to grow in our warming climate.
"The changing environment, together with the need to diversify the food system and to chase away some of the health issues that we are having now, should trigger us to change the way we grow things, the way we eat," study co-author Enoch Achigan-Dako, an expert from Benin's University of Abomey-Calavi, told Mongabay.
Planet overheating — a rise of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1850 — is in part caused by human-produced heat-trapping air pollution. NASA links the warmup to increased risks for severe weather, including extreme heat and droughts.
The World Meteorological Organization reports that African countries are particularly impacted by the changes. Some are directing up to 9% of their budgets, totaling tens of billions of dollars, to projects that deal with "climate extremes." This is happening in countries where by 2030 about 118 million impoverished people will be living on less than $2 a day with a climate that's inhospitable to key crops, per the organization and Mongabay.
As part of the study, the experts examined current and future bioclimatic ranges for soil, rainfall, and temperature of traditional crops. This allowed them to identify the most challenging places on Earth to grow them by 2070. Suitable "ranges" for the foods drop by 14.5% to 17.7% in Central and West Africa, respectively, depending on the produce. Corn is predicted to be among the hardest hit, with up to a quarter of its growing locations impacted in the west and a third in central areas, Mongabay reported.
Fortunately, the "diversity we need is already available," according to Achigan-Dako.
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He and other experts discovered that often overlooked plants can support diets and economies in place of staple foods. Most importantly, they are hardy enough to grow in diverse conditions.
"But nobody is promoting those crops," he said.
It's a problem being considered by other experts, as well. U.K. scientists are working to boost plant immune systems to better ward off pathogens. At the University of Maryland, heat-resistant apples are being developed through gene tinkering.
At home, you can grow your own food in a backyard garden. It's a move that can save hundreds of dollars a year with an investment of $70 or less. What's more, disease-resistant varieties of many common vegetable plants already exist, as cited by Cornell University.
Mongabay reported that experts are continuing to look for foods that will thrive on Earth in the future, with the goal of increasing awareness of them.
As a result, black nightshade, leafy amaranth, pumpkin leaves, okra, jute mallow, and leafy cowpea — all in a peanut sauce — might soon be on the menu, according to the World Vegetable Center's Maarten van Zonneveld.
"If you don't know what you have, you cannot conserve it, and you cannot use it," van Zonneveld told Mongabay.
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