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“Foreign” crops – from maize to mangoes – dominate national food consumption and farming practices worldwide
Friday, 2016/08/12 | 07:22:03
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by Neil Palmer CIAT Jun 8, 2016
The origins of over two-thirds of the grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural crops countries grow and consume can be traced to ancient breadbaskets in distant parts of the world, according to an exhaustive peer-reviewed report published today.The study, covering 151 crops and 177 countries, marks the first time scientists have quantified the level of interconnectedness of national diets and agricultural economies in terms of non- native plants, providing a novel take on the global crop diaspora, and a deeper understanding of how globalization continues to affect what we eat. The findings also have important implications for efforts to make the global food supply more resilient to challenges such as climate change.
“It’s fascinating to see the extent to which so many plants have become synonymous with traditional diets in countries many thousands of miles from where those plants first appeared,” said lead author Colin Khoury of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and United States Department of Agriculture. “If you’re eating tomatoes in Italy or chillies in Thailand, you’re consuming foods that originated far away, and that have reached those places relatively recently.
“Now we know just how much national diets and agricultural systems everywhere depend on crops that originated in other parts of the world.”
Khoury worked with fellow researchers at CIAT, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and several universities to complete the study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
They analyzed a range of crops central to food supplies (measured in calories, protein, fat, and food weight) and national agricultural production (measured in production quantity, harvested area, and production value) in countries covering 98% of the world’s population.
Each crop was traced back to the world’s 23 “primary regions of diversity”. These are geographic zones where a distinct range of edible plants were domesticated and developed by early farmers thousands of years ago, to become the food crops we know and love today. In recent centuries, migration, colonialism, and trade have resulted in many of these crops being produced and consumed far from their primary regions of diversity, a trend that continues today.
The study found that all countries of the world now rely on “foreign” crops that originated in geographic regions well beyond their borders.
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