Essay by Eric Worrall
Smithsonian correspondent Sarah Kuta has discovered it might be possible to eat tropical staples like Bread Fruit in place of wheat, if the planet warms.
Is Breadfruit the Climate Change-Proof Food of the Future?
New research suggests it will fare better than our current staple crops under warming conditions
Sarah Kuta
Daily Correspondent August 30, 2022 11:11 a.m.Whether fried, fermented, roasted or eaten raw, breadfruit is a versatile food that’s played an important role in Oceanic cuisine for thousands of years. Now, as the climate continues to shift because of human actions, the fruit could increasingly play a role in addressing global hunger, according to a paper published this month in the journal PLOS Climate.
Past research has found that yields of staple crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and ricemay decline in the future because of climate change, especially in regions close to the equator. But the dimpled, lime-green crop of the breadfruit tree seems to be more resilient to rising temperatures and increased rainfall variability, the new research suggests.
…
“Breadfruit is a neglected and underutilized species that happens to be relatively resilient in our climate change projections,” says Daniel Horton, an Earth and planetary scientist at Northwestern University and one of the study’s authors, in a statement. “This is good news because several other staples that we rely on are not so resilient… As we implement strategies to adapt to climate change, breadfruit should be considered in food security adaptation.”
…
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/is-breadfruit-the-climate-change-proof-food-of-the-future-180980665/
Here’s another thought – now Earth and Planetary scientists have discovered people in the tropics can grow food, do you think it possible that the genetic engineers of the future might be able to transfer heat resilience to cold climate fruit, or cold resilience to warm climate fruit?
That way we could continue to enjoy all the foods we love, plus a whole lot more, regardless of what happens to the global climate.
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Yeah, i don’t know what irritates more; the pathetic attempt at advertising a “business opportunity” made in Tulip hell, or the assertion that we could instead genetically modify our way out of malnutrition.
Malnutrition promoted by the words and actions of people who still have not delivered one single shred of proof that genetically modified organisms are safe or even just appropriate food.
Dear god, will this bilge never end?!
I hope these morons enjoy paying their extortionate energy bills whilst producing nonsense research.
No, the bilge will never end. Bilge is eternal. The wisdom that comes from perspective is fleeting.
However, for this article, I’m pretty sure the title is facetious. It’s hard to believe that even in this doomsday-obsessed, bilge-sloshing world, there are people who put sugar in their coffee every morning, who fail to realize that coffee and sugar both grow in the tropics: coffee at high elevations where it’s cool, and sugar down low where it’s really hot.
Believe it, Tom. There are far too many people who have absolutely no idea where their food comes from. Even if they go out of their way to get “fair trade organic”, they still don’t actually understand.
I had a conversation with someone yesterday about buying meat.
He told me that he goes to a farmer to buy meat that people ordered but didn’t pick up so that his name wouldn’t be associated with killing an animal. He’s impressed that I eat wild game because it’s healthier but he couldn’t kill an animal.
I told him he just hires people to kill for him.
People are emotional creatures which the left takes advantage of. They can be led astray from logic and data by pulling on their heartstrings. The leftists also barrage people with emotional appeals while censoring opposing data and viewpoints.
It comes from the government. If you are a good comrade, you get more. Others get less in order to save the world. Be grateful.
That’s dear gaia to you boyoh and the grant application is already in for- ‘Can the Inuit metabolism possibly adapt to breadfruit?’
It won’t end so long as the leaders can still make money off it.
Good catch, Eric. Turns out the Fruitloops are in favor of Breadfruit? Here’s a clue about future growing regions, whichever way it goes: I live in central Argentina, in Mendoza Province, one of the really good wine producing centers on earth, and flanked to the north and south by a continuation of wine production. Argentina itself is north-south elongate, it has jungle in the north and glaciers in the south (and me in the middle where I belong). If it gets warmer the wine producing region shifts south, I’m still OK, if it gets cooler the wine producing region shifts north, I’m still OK.
I am so doing a visit to Argentina’s wine growing district one day… 🙂
Let me know and I will set it up for you, especially as regards exchanging dollars for pesos and which bodegas really offer the goods at a reasonable price (hint: Familia Zuccardi, Asado, Regular Menu). Cheers!
Sounds nice. I live in the middle of a beer growing district.
The beer growing district seems to be the middle of ME.
That may be where it began, but beer gardens are in lots of places now.
But, Ron, CliSciFi tells us humans can’t move a little north or south (adapt). We’re doomed!
I wonder how breadfruit will fare in fields of solar panels.
Not well, its a really tall tree with big dense leaves. I’m guessing they’ll have to cut it down.
I hope you mean cut down the solar panels.
The green loony activists don’t mind cutting down miles of forest for windmills so there is no additional hypocrisy for cutting down breadfruit trees for solar panels.
For people determined to “save the planet” they sure are destructive to nature.
Indeed they are.
SCOTLAND’S Net-Zero Forest Management Program
https://bit.ly/39zwmJD
February 23, 2020
Download original document: “Scottish Forestry information request 19-02646”
Thank you for your request dated 26 November and received on the 5 December and the clarification dated 19 December 2019 under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs).
You asked for:
a) the number of trees felled for all onshore wind farm development in Scotland to date.
b) the area of felled trees, in hectares, for all onshore wind farm development in Scotland to date.
I enclose some of the information you requested.
Specifically data covering renewable developments on Scotland’s national forests and lands, which is managed on behalf of Scottish Ministers by Forestry and Land Scotland. The area of felled trees in hectares, from 2000 (the date when the first scheme was developed, is 6,994 hectares [70 km², 17,283 acres]. Based on the average number of trees per hectare, of 2000, this gives an estimated total of 13.9M.
Sorry, the link is broken. Here is the author info.
Posted: February 23, 2020 | Author: Jamie Spry | Filed under: Climate Change, Climatism, Environmentalism, Failed Green Schemes, Green Agenda, Green Energy, Green New Deal, Renewables, Sustainability, Unreliables, Wind Farms | Tags: Agenda 21, Clashindarroch Forest, Climate Change, Climatism, Global Warming, Green Energy, Greta Thunberg, Net Zero, Net Zero 2050, Renewable energy, Scotland, unreliables, Wind Farms, wind power
But wheat is a semi desert crop, & deserts get hot.
Michael VK5ELL
P.S. there is at lat a test rig in Australia for Renewables.
Just type in ” King Island, Tasmania ,Hydro” then select that item.
You will see a switchboard showing wind
& solar generation, & diesal back up.
Plus battery & a flywheel.
I watched it day & night, once the diesal turned off when a storm pushed wind to 100 %.
But backup was needed most of the time.
I typed in what you wrote. Nothing like what you describe is coming up. Can you find a link, please?
It is very interesting to watch. Currently 11:00am and the Diesel is providing 84% of the demand. Obvioisly no wind and cloudy(normal for Tassie)
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
Wow, I looked and in a matter of less than a minute it went from 60% from the diesel and 40% wind to 79% diesel and 21% wind, with the wind output reading continuously changing, thus the diesel output also continuously changing to compensate That must be really good for the diesel engine and generator.
Am I reading this correctly? Flywheel is -33kw as I watch.
This telling me the flywheel is using power? Not storing it?
When the flywheel is negative, the blue arrow is pointing towards the flywheel, so it should be storing power. If they need to dump excess power, they send it to the resistor, not the flywheel.
I am not aware of any members of the mighty kingdom Plantae that would not benefit from elevated temperature and CO2 levels, comparative analysis of more than twenty years of satellite images clearly shows a substantial increase in the Leaf Area Index (LIA).
Saguaro might not do well if it gets hotter. Other than a few others like that I would tend to agree.
C’mon, you lazzy greens, leave your comfort zone, stop eating insects and get used to eating tropical fruits!
Currently held up by the too many activist groups, UN Agenda, woke Australian governments is a plan to create new irrigation crop growing areas across Northern Australia extending East from the Western Australia Kununurra Irrigation Area now established watered from the enormous Ord River Dam. The area identified by the CSIRO is approximately the area of Western Europe.
After 2013 the Abbott Coalition Federal Government together with the Newman LNP (coalition in QLD) QLD Government overturned Wild Rivers legislation and UN registration to permit construction of dams to provide water to the new irrigation area where new towns and other infrastructure is also planned.
During the wet season (summer) in Northern Australia there is an enormous amount of rainwater released to the oceans via the rivers and creeks. Another and older plan held up by the procrastinators and environment groups involves pumping water from Northern Australia to the Southern areas.
Australia is already a major exporter of off farm products plant and animal and the Northern development would be a significant addition to export potential.
Many, many years ago (perhaps in the 1980s, I can’t remember for sure) an American hydrologist visiting my country commented: “Portugal is a country so rich that it lets the water of its rivers flow to the ocean without doing any work in their way”. We had already most of our hydroelectric dams built in the most appropriate places (we were taught at primary school to refer to hydroelectric metaphoricaly as “white coal”), but most of the smaller rivers from center to south were not used to irrigate that half of the country which is a kind of steppe though fairly levelled (a peneplain). All those waters were flowing to the sea without “working”, i.e., without being used for increasing agricultural production.
Building new towns and infrastructure in Australia would be a mistake. Australians aren’t having enough babies to maintain population in their current towns. Unless you manage some actual population growth then all you are doing is either
1) Opening Australia for mass migration
2) Moving people from population centers to rural areas
Mass migration should be intentional, not accidental. Given the history of the last 200 years I find it unlikely that any country can manage mass migration out of population centers.
After the Democrats took over the nearby city, there was a mass migration out of the city… and they are all moving out to the country where I am.
Well, it used to be out in the country.
–
–
Just commented to the Mrs. a few minutes ago about the light pollution in our area. We had stepped out to bring in the bird feeders for the night; racoon troubles.
When we moved here 22 years ago, it wasn’t desert-clear, but you could see most of the stars. Farmland all around.
It is a clear night here and the light pollution is so bad you can hardly see Venus and a few of the stars. Orion might become visible after midnight and just maybe the Big Dipper. Our unincorporated township has built up incredibly fast in the last 10 years.
The
locustsDemocrats that ruined the Big City fled to our township and are proceeding todevourruin things here. *SPIT!* We’re moving.Woo Hoo. Does this include Mango? If so, I’m in
And yet global yields are at near record levels
Do they ever check-in with the real world?
Isn’t warmer weather conditions, rainfall and carbon dioxide useful.
Kind of…
Only to grow specific tree rings.
Exactly. An earth and planetary scientist (not an agrarian) from Chicago makes the statement, “Breadfruit is a neglected and underutilized species… ” Neglected? But about 10 minutes of search and reading reveals that breadfruit is widely cultivated throughout the tropics. Without irrigation, it requires about 60-100 inches of rainfall per year. It also requires consistently warm to hot temperatures (duh, it is a tropical tree). So even irrigated, it is a water hog and not cold tolerant, so widespread extra-tropical cultivation is impracticable. Yields of about 10 tons (wet weight) per acre are good when well-fertilized, but not spectacular, and harvesting and preparation for market are not easy. If the “watermelons” had their way, the use of those evil chemical fertilizers must stop, and breadfruit yields would drop substantially. Result? Sri Lanka.
As a general rule, farmers (who are not dumb, especially when trained and supported by their own national agricultural research and extension) grow crops that are suited to their soils and climate and market preferences and that optimize their profits while guarding against vagaries of weather. Inter-annual variability is a much bigger challenge than the rather slow process of climate change. The claim that this crop or that one is “neglected and underutilized” is both uninformed and dismissive of the farmers who feed the world.
Today’s crop (geddit!) of scientists are hell bent on re-inventing the wheel
I predict they will soon (re-)discover the latitudinal species gradient.
“under utilized” just means that the researcher in question hasn’t heard of it before.
Except in places with drought or floods… like Pakistan just now, for example
Very rarely a year goes by without floods and droughts happening, very often in the same location. UK 1976.
Griff don’t you ever think before touching the keyboard?
Does a keyboard worrier ever think?
griff still believes that the entire planet is only allowed 1 once in a thousand year event per thousand years.
BTW, please ponder on the meaning of the word “global”, then hang your head in shame.
We already demonstrated elsewhere that the floods in Pakistan are repetitive, not unusual, and to be expected given where everyone lives and farms in Pakistan. Apparently, if anyone connected to any weather story says the words “climate change,” then that is griff’s signal, like a Pavlov dog.
The only reason griff writes about climate change is because griff can’t spell ‘weather’.
In grade school, not only did we have to spell the word, but we also had to use it in a sentence. Can anybody recall griff using ‘weather’ in a sentence? I rest my case.
News flash lots of nice things grow in the tropics
Mangoes Yams Breadfruit taro sugar cane and lots more
Rice too.
Avocados
“News flash…”
We know. All those food miles/kilometres have to go.
“BUY LIVE MEALWORMS & DRIED MEALWORMS
Buy live Mealworms from Livefoods Direct – British-bred and quality guaranteed, with the best prices online. Need your Mealworms fast? Choose our specialist overnight courier service at the checkout, available Monday to Friday.
British Bred Mealworms – Cheapest Prices Online
Order online from our wide range of mealworms and supersaver packs below. “
https://www.livefoodsdirect.co.uk/amphi/mealworms
Oh, sorry…
“Great food for Reptiles, Wild Birds, Cage Birds and Small Mammals.”
Are you a small mammal?
Not as small as I used to be.😁
When I was born, I was pretty small, Brad. But I grew out of it.
And the bananas, which I regularly buy at 50 cents/pound…almost always the least expensive fruit at the produce market, despite higher shipping costs compared to locally grown fruits.
Wheat for Australia’s tropical north developed …
https://www.graincentral.com/cropping/new-wheat-for-australias-tropical-north/
For those interested in facts about the geographical distribution of soybean production …
SoybeanSoybeans (SB) are used as food and feed ingredients for their protein content and protein composition.https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/soybean
(2008)
“Past research”? Whose past research?
In any event, wheat grows great even in very hot climates – Egypt was the bread basket of the Roman Empire, and don’t try to to tell us Egypt isn’t hot.
Warming only affects the length of the growing season of wheat. If the climate in a particular region warms, its growing season gets longer, allowing for MORE food production such as the ability to grow more than one crop per year.
The ancient Egyptians drank a lot of beer…
That explains the way they walked.
Where I grew up oats and barley were about the only cereals that grew reliably., hence whisky, oatcakes and porridge.
If things get drier and warmer I imagine that the range of cereals grown would increase. Not only that by going up in altitude and latitude oats and barley can still be grown. Unless the whole of Scotland has been rewilded.
Rewilding of farmland is an enormous problem in the UK which already imports most of the food we consume (estimates of food ingredients imported are as high as 80%). Some farmland already lost to solar, and some to biofuels. When so little food is securely produced locally, paying farmers more to NOT produce food than they can possibly earn from food production leaves us in an even more vulnerable position. The lost farmland is unlikely to be allowed to return to production until after the starving population has become “restless”.
Then the problem becomes where to find experienced farmers, Paul.
So Africa could feed Africa without us bringing tons of food ?
Ah, but what would the UN and all those NGOs do, then?
And all those Celebrities 🙂
“Prince Harry spent half an hour in the jet on the ground, with the engines idling, waiting for the Polo gear he left behind to be delivered in a black Range Rover.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/29/royal-hypocrite-climate-warrior-prince-harry-flew-in-a-private-jet-then-waited-for-the-car/
We’ve seen peak Sussex.
Now watch them crash and burn. My money’s on a divorce before too long.
Of course Zimbabwe was the food bowl of Africa until the white farmers were driven off the farmlands they and their ancestors developed.
Saving humanity — and getting paid!!!
Wheat is grown from Texas north into Canada. Rising temps won’t affect the plantings size much if any. In southern areas can go from winter wheat to spring wheat if seasons become long enough. Soybeans and corn the same. The big issue is rain not a heat issue. Longer growing seasons are even better for crops.
These scientists are so removed from living on the land they are ignorant of what technology in equipment and seed crops have accomplished in the last 3 decades. Their basic assumptions need to have research performed in order to validate them.
Oh these nice:
High fibre
(very) low protien
high starch
middling sugar
some trace elements, esp Calcium
Epic. The cows, sheep,Bambi, pigs and goats will love that stuff – it’s exactly what they evolved to eat.
And then when they’re full, we can eat them = just what we evolved to eat.
i.e. saturated fat and animal proteins plus loads of bio-available nutriments in the organ-meats, blood and bone marrow
Thank you Climate Change, things are looking up
😀
Breadfruit instead of wheat? What absurd mental process are these breadfruit and nutcases using? If the planet warms up, we can just grow the wheat a bit further from the Equator. With all of Canada and Russia potentially producing wheat, the world is not exactly likely to run short of the stuff.
They are running out of scares/ideas….
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were to develop a strain of wheat that could handle an extra degree or two.
Currently, and for the foreseeable future, there is no need to develop such a strain.
Exactly my thoughts. If the frozen tundra on earth sufficiently thawed it would be a far greater expanse of potential farmland than in use by the world today. Further, there is no place on earth, aside from volcanoes, where it is too hot to grow plants. Too arid, yes, too hot, no. There is a huge area of frozen tundra where it is too cold to grow crops..
I have always wanted to try breadfruit.
anybody had any? What is it like?
Would you believe them if they told you?
https://parade.com/66707/linzlowe/what-the-heck-is-a-breadfruit-and-how-do-you-eat-it/
tastes like chicken
If I were a religious person, which I’m not, I would wonder if an earlier word for breadfruit would be Manna.
I was told years ago that manna was the overnight secretion of an insect, but I looked it up on DDG and that is only one idea, it also might be a secretion of a tree.
Anyone’s guess will be as good as anyone else’s.
But it certainly isn’t breadfruit, that is a big tree that needs more water than the Israelites ever found in the desert.
The ones with bad mannas bite people.
Time you got out of your basement and went for a trip to the tropics
Just leave a note for mom letting her know where you’ve gone, griff.
I’ve never tried breadfruit, but I keep hearing about it. My subtropical home is a little outside its growing range. My Tongan friend says its delicious.
“Past research has found that yields of staple crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and ricemay decline in the future because of climate change, especially in regions close to the equator”
Are they aware that most of these crops are not grown near the equator? Or that a warming climate would mean more land in Canada and Russia would be available for growing crops?
Breadfruit has been around a long time… but never caught in the West as a staple beyond sailors at sea in three masted schooners.
Hey, I got nothing against breadfruit.
But this kind of talk shows the direction of the Cult of Green.
The good ship Bounty was after breadfruit plants? Breadfruit was brought to the Caribbean but the slaves did not like the stuff. Dr. Steven Gundry says wheat and other grains have lectin which cannot be removed so he says no to most grains.
And the breadfruit trees thirst for fresh water is what caused a mutiny amongst the thirsty crew. While a few trees producing some low-value breadfruit may help some subsistence farmers, cereal crops or other staples will remain much more productive. Better still if real food is produced for human consumption – beef, lamb, pork, chicken.
As long as you buy his products you’ll be all right.
“…the slaves did not like the stuff.”
That could be because they didn’t know how to cook it. A bit like the desperate attempts to use maize in the Irish potato famine.
I would prefer they find a way to make a cold-resistant avocado, thank you.
In the case that worldwide temperatures do rise, the warming temperatures would create more open cropland in the higher latitudes in the northern and southern hemispheres. Specifically in the northern hemisphere occupied by large continental tracts of land north of the great “breadbaskets” of the world which are presently indisposed for raising grain due to shorter growing seasons.
This creates a situation whereby you increase available cropland in the northern higher latitudes, while at the same time can still use the cropland in the present “breadbaskets”. You also increase the growing season for the present breadbaskets of the U.S., Canada and Russia. This means you won’t necessarily have to change diets staples from wheat and corn to breadfruit and mangoes. Rather there will be more land and more availability of food, which means less worldwide hunger.
Higher worldwide temperatures mean more available food.
Breadfruit is an interesting crop — not popular in the Dominican Republic though, where I spend much of my time. Lots of breadfruit tress there.
Breadfruit is low protein, like casava (“yuca) root, and high carbohydrate — even less than the potatoes.
Wheat has about 10 times as much protein as breadfruit — so is not a suitable substitute.
Bread fruit was introduced as cheap fodder for the slaves, so it might have a negative stigma in some parts of the Caribbean. It looks like a good potato substitute, lots of starch and a good source of vitamins. As for protein, plenty of fish in the sea.
Fat is the difficult nutrient in the tropics, people in the Pacific Islands are suffering horrible obesity and diabetes problems, because they find Western fatty foods like mutton flaps utterly irresistible, thanks to an enhanced metabolic craving for fat.
The latest version of Firefox isn’t working correctly with this web site, at least on my PC. What I’m seeing is that just above the comments, I see large boxes with a letter or 2 in it. I have Firefox update automatically and it did it yesterday. And I can’t post a comment now using Firefox. I’m posting this with the Microsoft Edge browser which seems to be OK, so far. Has the web site been rebuilt- so perhaps the HTML code isn’t compliant with the latest version of Firefox? Although as I look at it- just below where I’m typing this I see 9 small boxes with nothing in them. My OS is W8.1.
fine on my fire fox v104.0 on linux mint you might have malware
I see the same thing but only on certain articles not all and not this one. I emailed CTM about this.
Tom, same here,andit’snotconsistent.
Also.the.input.box.keeps.deleting.space.characters
I’m fine on v104.0.1.