EVEN IN THE BEST growing conditions—
with moderate weather, predictable
rainfall, and rounded seasons—growing
food is hard. Add in climate volatility,
erratic floods, and frequent drought,
and the entire food system becomes
an equation of anxiety, hope, and
in some regions, dread. “We have a
climate change threat to our food
system and not many strategies to
deal with it,” says Michael Puma of
Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
What will that mean for our plates?
Global commodities such as corn and
wheat are susceptible to dramatic shifts
in growing regions and crop output.
The UN says that without strategies
for adapting, lower staple yields will
lead to shortages and increased prices
for human and livestock consumption,
hitting developing tropical countries
the hardest. More charismatic foods,
like the ones shown here, will morph
in appearance, nutritional value, avail-
ability, and price as growing regions
shift and farmers turn to warm-weather
crops. Longer growing seasons aregenerally good news for farmers and
plants, but lack of rainfall or insufficient
cold weather could stunt even the best-
laid seeds and plans.
Innovation will be part of foods’ evo-
lution, in the field and in the lab. Seed
breeding and gene editing are helping
some fruits and vegetables grow faster
and bigger to outrun a season’s height-
ened probability of flood or drought.
Other technologies help food last lon-
ger to be shipped farther, in some cases
not requiring refrigeration at all.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change projects that the
planet won’t lose much arable land
before 2050 and that few foods will dis-
appear completely—but over the com-
ing decades, crops and diets will evolve.
Retaining the world’s favorite foods and
making them accessible to more people
will require eating smarter, says Char-
lotte Streck, director of Dutch-based
think tank Climate Focus. That means
less meat, more plants, and getting all
you can from as close as possible. j5 6
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