Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
Note: This is Part 2 of a four part series. If you are not familiar with The Fight Against Global Greening – Part 1, you can either read it in its entirety and then read this, or read the introduction of Part 1 up to the line “Let’s look at #1” and then read this. — kh
Carl Zimmer of the NY Times has said “‘Global Greening’ Sounds Good. In the Long Run, It’s Terrible.”. In collaboration with Dr. J. E. Campbell of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, he has stated that position, offering us these:
Bad Things About Global Greening: (quoted from Zimmer’s article)
1. “More Photosynthesis Doesn’t Mean More Food“
2. “Extra Carbon Dioxide Can Make Plants Less Nutritious”
3. “More Plants Won’t Prevent Climate Change”
4. “Global Greening Won’t Last Forever”
In Part 1, we looked at the question of the relationship between increased photosynthesis and food production (Zimmer’s #1). Now….
Let’s Look at #2: “Extra Carbon Dioxide Can Make Plants Less Nutritious”
Here’s what Zimmer and Campbell say:
“A number of studies indicate that plants that grow in extra carbon dioxide often end up containing lower concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen, copper and potassium.”
As more carbon dioxide gets into the atmosphere, the problem will grow. “There’s definitely strong evidence that quality will be affected,” said Dr. Campbell.
It’s not clear why this happens. In a paper published in the journal Current Opinion in Plant Biology in June, Johan Uddling of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and his colleagues speculated that microbes are to blame.
Just as carbon dioxide speeds up photosynthesis, it may also increase the rate at which soil microbes take up nutrients, leaving less for plants to suck in through their roots.”
If we eat food that lacks nutrients, we become more vulnerable to a host of diseases. Recently, a team of researchers at Stanford University studied how future changes to crops could affect the world’s health. The findings were grim. In Southeast Asia, for example, the researchers estimated that the rate of iron deficiency may rise from 21.8 percent to 27.9 percent by 2050. Deficiencies in iron and other nutrients could make millions of people more vulnerable to diseases including malaria and pneumonia, leading to many premature deaths.”
Getting rid of the silly part first: “microbes are to blame” — Uddling et al. state very plainly that they have no idea why the differences in (primarily) proteins are found in wheat grown under higher CO2 concentrations. Quoting from the conclusion: “At present, none of mechanisms and processes hypothesized can fully explain the CO2-induced declines in crop N [proteins] concentrations.” Second silly part: “If we eat food that lacks nutrients”…. If it has no nutrients, it is not food at all. Every bite of food we eat has either more, the same, or less of any one “nutrient” than every other bite of food — every piece of piece of fruit has more or less nutrients than every other piece of fruit — every grain has different concentrations of nutrients than every other grain. That there are differences in concentrations of nutrients in foods is not a cause for alarm nor does it “cause” diseases, disabilities, or vulnerabilities. I will reveal the true causes further on.
The most important point is embodied in the claim that plants grown under enhanced CO2 conditions “often end up containing lower concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen, copper and potassium.” This is the food faddists fallacy and is responsible for a great deal of nonsense in the food and nutrition fields of science.
There are always differences in nutritional values between individual crops of any food item. The same food item harvested from the south forty acres of my grandfather’s farm will have different nutritional qualities when compared to the same variety harvested off the north forty acres of the same farm. This is due to the slightly differing growth conditions, water availability, soil nutrient levels, fertilization schedules, planting dates, maturity at harvest and handling of the crop after harvest. The south forty crop may have discernibly higher percentages of certain minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates than the north forty crop. Likewise, the north forty crop may be higher in other measures of “nutritional value”.
When a farmer grows a different variety of the same crop — say a different corn variety — then the game changes wildly.
For instance, there are currently preserved at The Crop Trust 29,401 different varieties of maize (corn to those in the United States). Here’s an example of the effect on nutritional values of crop varieties of corn:
“Maize is the preferred staple food of more than 1.2 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. However, maize-based diets, particularly those of the very poor, often lack essential vitamins and minerals. Over 50 million people in these regions are vitamin A deficient, which can lead to visual impairments, blindness and increased child mortality. The white maize eaten in much of sub-Saharan Africa contains almost no pro-vitamin A, while standard yellow maize varieties contain about 2 micrograms per gram (µg/g) – still insufficient in a diet dominated by maize. …. Scientists anticipate producing materials with the ultimate target of 15 µg/g within the next four years by using cutting edge lab tools to help select the best materials for breeding.”
Some maize contains no pro-Vitamin A at all — another yellow variety contains some, but not enough to prevent Vitamin A deficiency alone. Through cross-breeding maize varieties, the breeders at The Crop Trust hope to create a variety that will provide the 15 ug/g necessary to prevent Vitamin A deficiency in those for whom maize the major staple food. We all know the story of Golden Rice — suppressed by Greenpeace and other misguided fanatics — which could eliminate Vitamin A deficiency in areas depending on rice as a staple.
In this case, the corn that is the basic food for these people has virtually no Vitamin A — another variety has a lot more — but that “a lot more” doesn’t change the public health issue, it isn’t enough to guarantee to prevent Vitamin A deficiency. So the yellow corn is not a superfood despite having many multiples “more” Vitamin A. These two varieties are both insufficient…a change of plus or minus 10% or even 50% will make no difference. Vitamin A will have to be provided by a custom-bred corn variety or from another source.
“Fruits, roots, tubers, and leafy vegetables are the main providers of provitamin A carotenoids. Because of their availability and affordability, green leafy vegetables are consumed largely by the poor populations, but their provitamin A activity has been proven to be less than previously assumed. Among fruits, mangoes constitute an important seasonal source of vitamin A. Yellow or orange sweet potatoes are rich in provitamin A. Red palm oil has a high concentration of provitamin A carotenoids (500–700 ppm/100 g). Extension of new varieties with a high content of bioavailable provitamin A and locally adapted education and counseling on the handling and storage of provitamin A sources can significantly increase the vitamin A intake of vulnerable people.”
The converse can be true as well. In the Dominican Republic, where I served as a Humanitarian Missionary for many years, we never had to worry about Vitamin C deficiency among the poor. The fruits that grew wild in abundance provided all the Vitamin C anyone could need. More or less Vitamin C in the local variety of mango makes no difference — any single mango provides many times the daily requirement of Vitamin C and Vitamin A as well. But the babies of the poverty stricken desperately needed Vitamin A supplementation — because babies don’t eat mangoes.
This is true generally, all over the world. The small incremental differences in trace nutrients between crop varieties and between the same varieties grown in different locations is already greater than the differences seen between crops grown at various levels of atmospheric CO2. All of this was hashed out years and years ago when the latest “scary health story” was that “modern agriculture has depleted our soils so much that food is no longer nutritious.” (Usually followed by an advertisement for vitamin and mineral supplements that far exceed the needs of any human being anywhere).
For a full and exhaustive treatment of this issue, see Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains: The context of reports of apparent historical declines [pdf] by Robin J. Marles (Health Canada).
The issue is nutshelled in this quote from the Marles study:
“Contemporaneous analyses of modern versus old crop varieties grown side-by-side, and archived samples, show lower mineral concentrations in varieties bred for higher yields where increased carbohydrate is not accompanied by proportional increases in minerals – a “dilution effect”.”
When modern crops produce more grain or fruit, through plant breeding, better agricultural methods, modern fertilizers and CO2 fertilization, the increased “food” doesn’t contain an equal, proportional, increase in minerals, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates. Present day biology is not sure why this is.
The Bottom Line important for us from this paper is:
“The benefits of increased yield to supply food for expanding populations outweigh small nutrient dilution effects addressed by eating the recommended daily servings of vegetables, fruits and whole grains.”
Nutritional deficiencies don’t result from eating foods that “lack nutrients” — nutritional deficiencies result from poverty and the inability of people to have enough of the necessary foods to make up an adequate diet.
Nutritional deficiencies stem from not having enough to eat. Period.
The scary iron deficiency story from SE Asia alluded to by Zimmer in the Times — “researchers estimated that the rate of iron deficiency may rise from 21.8 percent to 27.9 percent by 2050” — is a Paris Agreement promoting piece of advocacy that assumes that the diets of the poor in these areas will remain unchanged, that there will be no advances in standards of living, food security or primary foods; no public health advances, no health education efforts; no vitamin supplementation programs where already desperately needed — in other words, the projections are based on a “the world stands still” scenario — and the only variable is the “projected” generalized decline in iron concentrations in “crops”, which is based on speculation — not on the foods actually in the diets of the affected peoples. Iron in human diets comes primarily from meats though there are good plant sources as well. Iron deficiencies arise where diets include little or no meat due to poverty and where lack of education deprives the people of the knowledge of plant-based alternatives. Paper @ “Anticipated burden and mitigation of carbon-dioxide-induced nutritional deficiencies and related diseases: A simulation modeling study”.
This small article in the New York Times on Vitamin A — which represents a much larger world-wide problem — exposes the simplicity of dealing with any such problem should it actually arise: “What a Little Vitamin A Could Do”. A single liquid Vitamin A capsule squeezed into the mouth of each newborn baby averts a very high percentage of Vitamin A Deficiency caused childhood blindness. Cost? 2 cents (less in bulk).
“Death by Diet” in today’s world is not caused by incremental differences in nutritional values of foods. That is a myth — the same myth that, on its flip-side, brings us “SuperFoods” and causes people to buy expensive amaranth, quinoa and other minor “ancient” grains in preference to inexpensive and abundant wheat, rice, rye and corn.
Of course, diet is important. But the basis of diet for a majority of the world’s people means “what we can grow or collect”; “what we can afford to buy” and “what we think we should eat”. Herein lies the entire problem of malnutrition in the world today. It can be reliably solved through the process of raising standards of living for the abjectly poor, education of children (especially women who will bear the burden of making diet choices for their families) and public health care that includes vitamin and mineral supplementation for the poor (particularly children) until their diets can be improved to meet their needs. Some of this education outreach must include agricultural methods to improve yields (which raises standard of living) and encourage the culture of a wider variety of garden items for the family diet (which eliminates vitamin and mineral deficiencies).
Senselessly worrying about small incremental changes in nutritional values of different crops under higher CO2 concentrations does not lead to any solution and does not solve the nutritional problems of the world’s poor. Just as the “soil depletion” scare passed away under the wheels of time, so will the “CO2-induced lack of nutrients” scare pass away — it is no more significant than its food fad flip-side, SuperFoods.*
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Author’s Comment Policy:
* SuperFoods are a misnomer, a myth, and categorically do not prevent or cure any disease known to man. All claims to the contrary are false. My apologies to AARP, Dave Lieberman and Anand O”Connor (of the NY Times). If you need dietary advice, you may have mine for free: Eat Your Chow (meaning a normal, well-rounded diet in moderation).
I will admit to having extended family members that feel that some awful tasting concoction of blended weeds is “better for me” than a simple salad because the ingredients are said to contain “X% more” of some particular nutrient than the food I already eat. Of course, my diet already has far more of that nutrient than my body could ever possibly use and most of it goes down the toilet with the bodies other excess and unwanted materials. If you live in a developed nation and eat a reasonably varied diet, you will never suffer from a nutritional deficiency (well, at least until old age finally destroys your ability to absorb some specific vitamin or nutrient — which can happen).
If you live in a developing country and are reading this, you probably have a high enough standard of living that you too are in no danger of vitamin deficiency.
It is the poor that suffer diet-related illnesses and they are caused by not enough of the right foods to eat — and often — from not enough food of any kind. Very rarely a region’s soil will be deficient in some odd trace element — but these instances of potential deficiency are well known where they occur. Thus, many countries mandate the adding of iodine to table salt and Vitamin D to milk.
Address your comments to “Kip…” if you are speaking specifically to me and I’ll try to respond.
Thanks for reading.
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Quick Links:
The Fight Against Global Greening – Part 1
“‘Global Greening’ Sounds Good. In the Long Run, It’s Terrible.”
speculated that microbes are to blame
Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits and grains [pdf]
Anticipated burden of carbon-dioxide-induced nutritional deficiencies study
What a Little Vitamin A Could Do
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Deficiency diseases are mostly closely related to severe poverty, like pellagra or beri-beri, associated with a very restricted diet on one deficient foodstuff. Even slightly less restricted diets, like the central American trinity of corn, beans, and squash, mostly avoid the severe deficiency diseases.
Of course, anyone with some income will try to spend some on a better diet, like adding cheese, or meat, or whatever.
The “less nutritious” lie is absolute, antihuman lunacy.
More CO2 of course means more crops. It also means more sugar relative to amino acids, but only if there be no more nitrogen.
If N be increased, then more CO2 also means more amino acids, ie “protein”.
Of all the lies told by the CACA proponent enemies of humanity, this is one of the most scurrilous.
Thanks Kip.
My only comment is that where we live, plums are now ripe.
We have 3 types ripe and more than we can eat, so we give them away.
We have some dried from last year, and we freeze some.
They are good, and good for you. https://www.nutrition-and-you.com/plums.html
Looking for your next essay.
With Roundup almost all our food is deficient in nutrients. This is additive to endemic mercury detox. This is agenda 21 via “magnesium depletion ” and what it does to your immune system.
To me, the most egregious and perhaps saddest thing about this article is that both of these authors know better. Neither Carl Zimmer nor Dr. Campbell are dumb. They are both quite accomplished, so they have to know this nonsense is pure BS. I just wonder how much money (and peer pressure) it took for them to sell their integrity.
“We all know the story of Golden Rice — suppressed by Greenpeace and other misguided fanatics — which could eliminate Vitamin A deficiency in areas depending on rice as a staple.” — I don’t feel sorry to say that it is a foolish observation. I not only published articles in technical conferences and newspapers but directly interacted the scientists involved in the development of Golden Rice from IRI Phillipines in Hyderabad, India. They invited me for discussion on the introduction of Golden Rice in India saying that the technology will be given free of cost. Scientists from UK found that the A Vitamin in the Golden Rice more harmful than the normal food as it contains excessive A Vitamin. This is a GMO.
In India there are several stapple food crop varieties that contain A Vitamin. ICRISAT scientists using these tradition crop seeds developed Pearl Millet seeds that contain Vitamin A within the safe limits.
The GMO companies are dumping GM food in India illegally — no lables. GM cotton seed oil is illegally produced and sold by the agents of GM companies. They bribe the officials and politicians for serving their criminal activities in India.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Astonishing. All those words about CO2 and the phrase “trace gas” didn’t appear once. I suppose it never mattered.
It must have been really difficult for all those organisms living when the co2 was 5 times higher than it is now to get enough nutrients! No wonder they were so small!
I doubt that lettuce of any variety has any value compared to a meal of fried eggs and bacon , plus grilled mushrooms and baked beans (English style not the awful Australian style BB).
To say thatvthe more man-made CO2 pumped into the atmosphere the better it is for us because of a greening planet is an absurd fallacy and only one that is still being promoted by the fringe US sceptic community: https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-36130346
“Senselessly worrying about small incremental changes in nutritional values of different crops under higher CO2 ”
It isnt senseless worry, it is an intentional lie to try to demonise CO2. These clowns worry no more about the quality of the environment than they do about food quality. CO2 isnt about quality, it is about global socialist governance.
Don’t forget that the very poor also need electricity from coal-fired power stations as soon as possible. A huge Health Factor.
Interesting how much mis-information is floating around out there regarding nutrition and genetic mutations.
Re: the RDA, the current RDA is not exactly science based, as it’s set to where no known pathologies exist rather than setting it to a point where the majority of humans would have optimal health. Studies at the University of Texas established a set of realistic levels based on determining what primates needed for optimal health. The studies were done as at the time a lot of research was being done using the primates and if you are inducing disease one would need to know that the primate was in optimal health prior to the inducement.
Dr. Roger J. Williams, one of the lead researchers, wrote a number of books on the subject and they are still available on Amazon.
The soil depletion scare …
Marx thought soil depletion was the result of capitalist agriculture.
What we’re seeing with the nutrition scare is also a problem that is easily dealt with, as was soil depletion.
Thanks for the excellent article Kip.
hmm?
https://www.sciencealert.com/scurvy-coming-back-vitamin-c-poverty-massachusetts-boston-vitamania-movie
and while quinoa Tef and amaranth may be expensive its more due to middleman n marketing
theyre all pretty good producers Tef maybe lesser grain, but it can be grazed twice before it heads so it feeds animals and humans and animals after harvest again
quinoa at least has every aminoacid we need to survive is high protien and really is acrop we need to grow far more of. its gaining ground in india and africa because its also very tolerant to salty water soils dry and cold
its biggest issue is frost or extreme heat just as it starts to head n flower, or rain when it is ripe.
do you really think that continuous use without a rest of soils, doesnt deplete, then cause hardpan and upset soil biota and balance, then I am amazed.
chemical inputs like chemical lab vitamins just dont do the same as natures inputs
places with deep soils grow great crops and thats usually the river flats and the areas glaciers left lots of rock dust behind.
fighting nature is costly and expensive and we lose
working with it is far saner.
This is probably relevant:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170802082924.htm
So if nutrition values drop 10% and you spread that over the world, then this happens. That approach is kind of sophomoric. Find what’s bad as a high school student would do for a science project. If, at the same time yields go up 20%, then what do we have? So if the food you eat goes up 20% by volume, while it’s nutrition goes down 10%, you are ahead, but maybe overweight. But the victims they find to make their point on average are not overweight.
At the same time, I do think it’s true, you get bulkier food. What is CO2? Future sugars in plant form. 6H2O + 6CO2 → C6H12O6 + 6O2.
Speaking as an average Deplorable with an average education level, I’m here to tell you that most of the population has 100% tuned out all the “dietary advice” from “Experts” that’s supposed to make us immortal and better looking until its invariably debunked and found egregiously harmful 10 years later. We’re going to eat what we like and can afford, probably not sweat it about exercise, and we’re completely sure that Life is 100% fatal, one way or the other, so we’d rather enjoy it while we can rather than wring our hands trying to change what everyone else does. And the kale-and-quinoa set can BITE ME.
Epilogue:
We have had a lot of interesting comments — and a lot of off-topic general GMO Wars sparring (which may be fun for the participants, but detracts from the conversation.) Hint: This essay was not about GMOs.
Several good comments about the true state of human knowledge about dietary nutrients and whether we really know how much of what we need for “optimal” health. Like CliSci, our knowledge is really pretty weak — we know just enough to identify certain clinical deficiencies and what to give patients to relieve the deficiency, but we know almost nothing that could be claimed to be the requirements for “optimal health” — if there is even such as thing as “optimal health” — which we don’t know either — its mostly a mystery, like “optimum climate”.
I appreciate those who try to make constructive additions to the conversation, ask interesting questions, or make collegial challenges to my stated views.
Thee are still two more essays in this series….stayed tuned.
Thanks for reading.
There is a market gardener near me in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne that grows the best crops of organic vegetables you could imagine, after each cropping he leaves that area to follow the old system of lying fallow for at least one year, some paddocks for two.
In poor counties, usually over populated, the ground does not receive the opportunity to regenerate and receive the necessary nutrients.
Of course the “experts” in blaming CO2 for everything would have taken this into account.
We already had that –
“When modern crops produce more grain or fruit, through plant breeding, better agricultural methods, modern fertilizers and CO2 fertilization, the increased “food” doesn’t contain an equal, proportional, increase in minerals, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates. Present day biology is not sure why this is.” –
With faster growing there’s less time to sample minerals, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates.
Once upon a time, long ago, I watched one of those excruciating teacher films where it was speculated that dinosaur size was connected to low nutrient density plants; where large animal size allowed greater amounts to be consumed…
Also in that film, the same researchers speculated that high CO₂ levels and young, relatively, evolutionary age of plants caused plants’ low nutrient densities.
A film best forgotten, even if activists are hyper focused on bizarre claims.
America’s U.S.D.A. maintains a nutrient-food data base that they keep updated and very comprehensive.
Two major oddities of the USDA Food-Nutrient data base is that it does not identify any substantive food nutrient differences for either organically raised or those foods raised in elevated CO₂ conditions. Nor have the USDA laboratories identified substantive differences for food raised hydroponically.
Then, there is the USDA’s predilection for tracking or conducting research, often in fields across America.
e.g.: “Elevated Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Effects on Sorghum and Soybean Nutrient Status,
D. W. Reeves, H. H. Rogers, and S. A. Prior
USDA-ARS National Soil Dynamics Laboratory, P.O. Box 3439, Auburn, AL
36831-3439
C. W. Wood
Agronomy and Soils Department, Auburn University Alabama 36849-5412
G. B. Runion
School of Forestry, Auburn University, AL 36849-5412 ”
Imagine that!? Conducting large scale experiments instead of just accepting someone else’s microcosm experiment where restricted supply of nutrients may restrict uptake.
Of course, this experiment was performed back when scientists were expected to honorably practice the scientific method and independent replication was necessary.
There you have it; USDA research and qualitative/quantitative laboratory tests refute the high CO₂ low nutrient value claims.
To improve nutrition, build a coal-fired power station. Easy.
The “less nutritious” is an over generalization and probably a misinterpretation of earlier research (see various papers in A history of Atmospheric CO2 and Its Effects on Plants, Animals and Ecosystems. Studies on plant metabolisms indicate that from say the mid-Mesozoic until about the Miocene (a time span with comparatively high atmospheric CO2), the chief limit on plant productivity was nitrogen availability. Ironically N is an atmospheric gas that is taken up as compounds (nitrates) through their roots. The only gas plants “inhale” is CO2. Over the span mentioned CO2 availablility steadily decreases and by about 20 MYA, C4 plants (and CAMS cycle plants as well) are beoming important and their importance is reflected in stable isotope composition in fossils – AND in the evolutions of herbivore teeth. The “hypsodont” or high crowned tooth, typical of animals like horses and bison, adapted to grass consumption are anadaptation to a grazing subsistence. Between about 7 and 6 million years ago there is a “carbon shift” reflected both in marine samples and in fossil grazers. The stable isotope C-13 increases dramatically and in geological terms abruptly over that span.
But to get back to the real point, as CO2 becomes more “rare,” the limit on productivity shifts from N to CO2. And since the late Miocene the chief limiting factor on planetary biological productivity has been CO2. Growth of deserts and and several other phenomena may be linked to this as well (ooh – plants affect climate!). Another point not made in the original article is that the highest effects on “greening” are around desert margins, not agriculturally. This is particularly important because plants are more drought resistant and handle water better with an adequate supply of CO2. So some degree of desrtification may be due to the extremely low levels of CO2 we “enjoy” at present. It all needs vastly more research which will not be done by CO2-climate control knob faithful.
“Dilution” of the concentration of specific mg minerals/ gram of wheat is something the elevated CO2 (eCO2) yield of extra content in grams/ sq. mt. that does have relevance. Part of the issue of reduced protein content in eCO2 grain is due to effects of reduced mineral concentration involvement in reducing the % of nitrogen concentration.
In some wheat cultivars a 10% reduction in sulphur/gram can knock down it’s nitrogen content 10%. Reductions in magnesium/gram is another mineral which notably results in less nitrogen %.
As most wheat cultivars grows from 400 ppm to eCO2 of ~550 ppm there is notable reduction in magnesium mg/gr concentration & an even wider range of sulphur/gr reduction among cultivars. Actually it is mg zinc/gr under eCO2 with the most drastic potential in some cultivars to lose in terms of %; & similarly it is mg zinc/gr with the most potential to drive down relative nitrogen concentration in some cultivars (over 20% less nitogen concentration from 10% less mg zinc/gr). However eCO2 actually increases mg zinc/gr in a few cultivars, which is rarely the case for magnesium& sulphur.
Cadmium has the distinction of consistantly impacting relative nitrogen concentration. A 10% cadmium reduction in concentration can reduce nitrogen % concentration by 10% & even >20% in certain wheat cultivars. Unlike most other minerals under eCO2 all tested wheat cultivars get less mg cadmium/gr.
So which mineral reduced in mg/gr concentration under eCO2 most likely to alternatively help to increase the % of nitrogen concentration? It seems that boron, in approximately half the meta-analysis cases, bucked the trend (wherein less mg boron/gr sometimes increased % nitrogen). The mineral potassium also had about the same rate of frequency in terms of dual outcomes reported ( but did not have as wide a range in effect on nitrogen).
More detailed charts & relationships of specific mineral I’ve not mentioned are available on-line.
Pardon my unedited comment – typed on finicky tablet & don’t want to lose composition. See Broberg, et al free full text (2017) ” CO2 induced changes in wheat grain composition: meta-analysis and response function.”
THOSE WHO THINK THIS COMMENT IS TOO LONG CAN SKIP THE EXAMPLE – OR NOT READ IT AT ALL
Kip,
“Getting rid of the silly part first: ‘microbes are to blame’…’At present, none of mechanisms and processes hypothesized can fully explain the CO2-induced declines in crop N [proteins] concentrations.'”
Stating that none of the processes hypothesized can AT PRESENT FULLY explain CO2-induced changes does not mean that microbes don’t play a role, even if they are not “to blame” for the full effect. It is not a silly hypothesis, it is one that needs more investigation.
“The most important point is embodied in the claim that plants grown under enhanced CO2 conditions ‘often end up containing lower concentrations of nutrients such as nitrogen, copper and potassium.’ This is the food faddists fallacy and is responsible for a great deal of nonsense in the food and nutrition fields of science.”
In what way is this a fallacy??? Your discussion is largely irrelevant – it’s obvious that crops have variation in nutrient composition. The point is that elevated CO2 levels could have a general, overall impact in nutrient content per unit yield. For those who rely on a crop like rice for most of their diet, this could be a substantial problem.
“The scary iron deficiency story …assumes that the diets of the poor in these areas will remain unchanged, that there will be no advances in standards of living, food security or primary foods; no public health advances, no health education efforts; no vitamin supplementation programs where already desperately needed ”
By the same token, is it safe to assume that these problems will soon be ameliorated, or that other populations won’t begin to experience similar problems as a result of climate change?
– Increases in population mean that increased yield doesn’t necessarily translate to higher food availability.
– One can be above the recommended caloric intake and still be malnourished.
– Advances in agricultural technology often require capital investment that isn’t available to the poorest farmers; even addition of N may be beyond their means.
– Political and socioeconomic factors will play an important role in the future of developing countries, something that is hard to predict, and over which outsiders often have little control.
Kip is absolutely right that “Senselessly worrying…does not lead to any solution and does not solve the nutritional problems of the world’s poor.” Worrying alone achieves nothing. However, recognition of a potential problem can lead to solutions. Dismissing it doesn’t.
EXAMPLE
Take Bangladesh, a country that has made great strides in reducing nutritional problems. “[P]er capita calorie intake in 2010 was 2,318 kilocalories (kcal) per day” (which is ABOVE the minimum requirement). Of course, this is an average, and about 1/4 of Bangladeshis still suffered from food insecurity in 2014 (all stats from the World Food Programme site). Poverty fell from 56.6 percent in 1991–92 to 31.5 percent in 2010. Maternal undernutrition, measured by ‘low’ body mass index, fell from 52% to 17% between 1996–97 and 2014. And yet, the rate of stunting among children under five was still over 1/3, and “acute malnutrition (or ‘wasting’) has remained worryingly stubborn over a long period.” One likely reason is that the contribution of cereals to total energy supply “has fallen very slowly—from 79.6 percent in 1995–96 to 77 percent in 2009–11” (a 2016 article puts it at 75%) – and that’s an AVERAGE. Some may say, Well, grow more veggies! – but this is not an option for the urban poor living in slums – likewise buying more veggies. The punchline: “About half of the population already suffer from iron and zinc deficiencies, which cause serious damage to health and nutrition, especially for small children and pregnant women. There is a genuine concern that rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will exacerbate the problem of micronutrient deficiencies further.”
Bangladesh HAS had increased standards of living and food production and security, yet “about one-fifth of the children under five in the richest wealth quintile were found to suffer from stunting in 2014,” and “Even among mothers with higher level of education (secondary completed), 32.8 percent of babies are born with low birthweight; among the wealthiest quintile, the proportion is 34.1 percent.”
Who among you can be sure that future changes in Bangladesh, much less the developing world as a whole, will make lower nutrient values unimportant? Kip?