Traditional Crops & Climate
Climate Cookery creates modern, delicious foods from the traditional, climate-smart crops overlooked by the industrial food system.
What are traditional crops? And what makes them climate-smart?
In the United States and increasingly around the world, we typically grow food in large-scale, industrialized monoculture fields -- like the mega corn farms in the Midwest.
Through a relentless focus on a single crop, these highly efficient systems yield marvelous amounts of corn, soy, and other commodity crops. But while the monotony of these systems make them efficient, it also makes them vulnerable to drought, disaster and the unpredictabilities of climate change, as seen in headlines like these:
“For the Central Valley, climate change is revealing the vulnerabilities of an industrial agriculture system that relies on predictability — which is rapidly unraveling — and shining a light on alternative growing practices that are potentially far more resilient to the onrushing changes.”
“Although rice consumption is up, rice production is down in commodity rice-growing regions that are becoming prone to inconsistent weather patterns. The challenge, for farmers, is how to meet demand for an inexpensive food source when Mother Nature has other ideas—and when the crop itself contributes to the emissions that are making it harder to grow in traditional locations.”
“Extensive conversion of native vegetation (which holds moisture in roots deep underground) into a soy monocrop (which stores little water) is becoming a major problem, as little Cerrado soy is currently irrigated. Scientists argue that the conservation of native vegetation must be actively pursued to save the Cerrado agricultural frontier.”
The monotony of our farms has put us on extremely shaky ground.
To stabilize us, experts have long espoused putting down the roots of “underutilized crops,” broadly defined as traditional crops (like “ancient grains”) that were once produced and eaten widely, but over the years have been forgotten by corporations, governments and the public at large.
We’ve forgotten a lot of crops. In fact, of the some 6,000 plant species that humans have cultivated in history, fewer than 200 are consumed today and just nine account for nearly 70 percent of all food produced (WWF). Whether you live in Paris or Papua New Guinea, much of your diet is likely based on three crops -- rice, wheat and corn.
Think about the flavors, the nutrients, the stories, the culture that have been lost as we’ve drastically narrowed the range of fruits, vegetables and grains we eat over the years.
Many of these forgotten crops are nutritious and delicious. They include grains, like millet and barley, vegetables, like parsnip and purslane, and fruits, like mangosteen and tamarind.
In addition to being healthy and tasty, they deserve our attention because they are low-cost, powerful tools to help us fight climate change.
Because these crops are uniquely suited to thrive in the geographic area in which they are cultivated, they don’t require the huge quantities of water and fertilizer that today’s commodity crops demand. They can also thrive in marginal areas that might not be suitable for conventional agriculture. It’s for these reasons that despite the lack of research dollars, government attention and consumer demand, small-scale farmers around the world continue to grow and benefit from these crops.
By reducing water use and land conversion, such crops can reduce the role agriculture plays in causing climate change. By growing under harsh conditions, they can also help farmers adapt to climate change. Here are a few examples:
Farmers all over India are growing millet, a marquee traditional crop that’s growing in popularity among the country’s progressive elite. Millet is a highly nutritious grain that requires very little water and thrives in tough conditions. I love this Guardian story about a group of women farmers in Nagaland organizing to grow and sell millet as an alternative to rice, a crop much more vulnerable to the climate crisis.
Working with agroecology organization Soils, Food and Healthy Communities, a group of smallholder corn farmers in Malawi started diversifying their fields by growing legumes, including pigeon peas, soybeans and cowpeas. The addition of legumes (woefully underutilized around the world) helps replenish soil with organic matter through nitrogen-fixing, while also boosting the health of the farmers’ families.
Many farmers in the Himalayas are experiencing increased crop raiding, as forest degradation has forced wild animals closer to humans (this should ring familiar if you’ve ever seen a deer in your backyard - or better yet, if a deer has made a meal out of something in your garden!). One of many solutions some smallholder farmers have implemented is to grow potatoes and coriander together. Since animals don’t like coriander, the underutilized crop protects the potatoes from pests and crop raiding (and later flavors the potatoes too!)
In the “Potato Park'' in Peru (definitely now on my travel wish list), a group of Quechua farmers communally manage a farming system to preserve hundreds of varieties of potatoes, as well as other tubers like oca and ulloca. The farmers share their knowledge with scientists developing climate-smart hybrid varieties that can withstand drought or disease. Their knowledge and practices are helping scientists plan for increased food insecurity in the future.
These are just a few examples of the ways that farmers are growing underutilized crops to revitalize land and prepare for climate shocks.
Other examples—and opportunities—abound.
Take tamarind, a nubby fruit with a tasty tang adored around the world. I grew up eating tamarind in dal, nearly every night. So I was surprised to learn it’s considered to be underutilized. While it is indeed used widely in tropical countries, it’s an afterthought — a crop that’s always there, but not one to cultivate, research and sell at the market. My parents told me how little attention is paid to tamarind trees and plants grown on people’s farms. I also spoke to NGO experts who said similar things about the plots of smallholder farmers in South India, where tamarind is even more common, and how farmers would welcome the opportunity to sell a crop that grows on their lands anyway.
It’s in these conversations that the idea of Climate Cookery developed. These crops are hardy, and they work hard. Our mission is to drive demand for them and support the smallholder farmers who are building stronger and more vibrant food systems for the future.
