14 February 2008: Seventy-five per cent of the food crop varieties we once grew have disappeared in the last 100 years. Today we rely on just three – wheat, rice and maize – for over two thirds of our calories.
The trend toward standardised food crops has been accelerated by the global push to modernise agriculture, and by the ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s and ‘70s which led to higher yielding crop varieties that helped end famine in India and feed an expanding world population. But now some scientists are concerned we may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. They worry that the drive to improve a few crops may have led to the neglect of many other, traditional crops potentially vital to future global food security. Earth Report goes to India and Italy to find out how, with more investment, crops of the past may be the foods of the future.
Earth Report – Forgotten Fruit will be broadcast on BBC WORLD:
Friday 15 February - 20.30, with repeat broadcasts on Monday 18 February 10.30, Tuesday 19 February 15.30 and Wednesday 20 February 02.30 and 08.30 (All times quoted as GMT)
For more information on programme schedules in local time zones visit www.bbcworld.com
In the Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu, Southern India, agronomists are working with local farmers to reintroduce millet. In recent decades millet has fallen out of favour as farmers have moved to cash crops like cassava instead, and used the profits to buy rice. Millet is highly nutritious and very hardy. The downside is that processing the grain for eating takes time and effort. Because of this, millet is one of the so-called ‘orphan crops’ – crops which have no commercial value and so don’t attract investment from scientific improvers. But with some real investment and development, millet could be a valuable contributor to world food security - especially with the threat of climate change leading to increasing drought and flood.
In Italy, Isabella Dalla Ragione runs the Associazone Archeologia Arborea. She seeks out forgotten fruit varieties that are no longer cultivated and grows them in her orchard. So far she has amassed 400 different fruit varieties that might otherwise have become extinct. She is working with the University of Perugia to determine how these rare fruits could become commercially-viable crops once more.
Meanwhile Indian researchers from the University of Bangalore are busy breeding millet varieties to make them more disease-resistant and higher yielding - and building machines that make processing less arduous. The net result of all this investment is that local shops are now selling millet for the first time, and - if the market takes off - fields of millet could once again be a common sight in the Kolli Hills.
“I think the environments are going to be more unpredictable so we need crops that are going to be safe, therefore we need to think about food security rather than food production.”
Sayed Azam-Ali, Professor of Tropical Agronomy, University of Nottingham, UK
“It's not just a nostalgic view because some of these [traditional] varieties are very good, very good to sell, good smell and good flavour and so why lose, why throw away? So they are our past and they can also be our future.”
Isabella Dalla Ragione, Associazone Archeologia Arborea
“These grains are going to be important. The rich people are becoming more health-conscious. There are more diabetics in India than in any other country. Therefore, your crops have a great future, don't abandon them.” Professor M S Swaminathan, Chairman, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation
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Forgotten Fruit was produced with the support of Bioversity, Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species and IFAD.
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