Climate-resilient crops and plants
Local subsistence farming has been replaced in many places by large-scale, international, commercial production for the export market. The long-term effects have been a reduction in traditional food production, changes from fibre-rich and plant-based diets to high-fat diets, a dependence on imported food supplies and increases in lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes. Nevertheless, some traditional household-based food processing and food preservation techniques, based on local, climate-resilient food crops and food plants, have proven to be sustainable.
Many traditional, local food production practices have been shown to be climate-resilient and able to withstand highly variant ecological and climatic conditions. For example, some communities rely heavily on starchy roots for nutrition. These plants have short growing seasons and are protected from the impacts of natural disasters because they grow underground, so they are a relatively secure source of nutrition.
Agricultural practices such as terracing, shifting agroforestry (using a diverse matrix of ground and tree crops) and multicropping preserve biodiversity, minimise erosion and improve the nutrient content of soil, which protects the quality of arable land. Traditional food trees in agroforestry and home gardens also enhance food access and dietary diversity, particularly among rural and resource-constrained families. In the Caribbean, cassava bread is produced because of it has a long shelf life and is transportable. In small Pacific islands, drying, fermenting and paste-making are used for long-term food storage. Processing and preserving local, climate-resilient food crops and food plants helps to safeguard food and nutritional security and environmental biodiversity.
Adapted from: Marrero, A., & Mattei, J. (2022). Reclaiming traditional, plant-based, climate-resilient food systems in small islands. The Lancet: Planetary Health, 6(2), e171-e179. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00322-3
Licence: Open access
