Vegetables are losing their nutrients. Can the decline be reversed?
Vegetables are losing their nutrients. Can the decline be reversed?
A process called biofortification puts nutrients directly into seeds and could reduce global hunger, but it’s not a magic bullet
In 2004, Donald Davis and fellow scientists at the University of Texas made an alarming discovery: 43 foods, mostly vegetables, showed a marked decrease in nutrients between the mid and late 20th century.
According to that research, the calcium in green beans dropped from 65 to 37mg. Vitamin A levels plummeted by almost half in asparagus. Broccoli stalks had less iron.
Nutrient loss has continued since that study. More recent research has documented the declining nutrient value in some staple crops due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels; a 2018 study that tested rice found that higher CO2 levels reduced its protein, iron and zinc content.
While the climate crisis has only accelerated concerns about crops’ nutritional value, prompting the emergence of a process called biofortification as a strategy to replenish lost nutrients or those that foods never had in the first place.
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Small farmer here. Devoid the soil of nutrients by tilling. Kill all the soil biology by spraying chemicals. Grow only fast yield cash crops. Grow the same crop year after year for decades or more. Breed crops for appearance and yield over nutrition. What the fuck do you expect?
I'm not a farmer but I've been reading about the history of industrial farming lately and I've become convinced that we're approaching agriculture completely wrong. We're planting massive monocultures in soil that's been wrecked for decades (via the things you've mentioned), surely that would have something to do with it?
If we completely flipped everything we've been doing for agriculture we'd be better off in the long run. Small farms have better yeilds, polycropping is better for the environment and modern pesticides create an evolutionary arms race that we will never win. We've got it all wrong and we've known it since (at least) the 70s. These outdated, expensive, impractical agricultural practices are only making things worse
Longer than the 70s, the fucking Dust Bowl was all about this. We've known better for almost an entire century and we're STILL fucking the soil with mono-crops
As you say, you're not a farmer.
Monocropping is vastly more efficient on a number of counts, especially labour input. I can't emphasise enough what a big deal that is, it's really the only reason anyone is getting fed.
Yes, there's a lot of problems with agriculture - predominantly its scale and extent, but eight billion mouths take a lot of feeding. Topsoil loss should be our main concern, together with biogeochemical flows/losses. Every other issue is fairly minor in comparison, really.
If North America could solve it's food waste problem we would not need so much industrial monocropping that actually feeds no one.
Again, that's not really how food production works - although it is a problem. Production surpluses are an essential buffer to deal with both supply and demand shocks, the elasticity this provides is (and I'm repeating myself) the only reason anyone is getting fed.
Capturing that food waste so it can at least end up back in the soil, yes, that's something that needs improving.
Keep monocropping and you won't have the land left to grow on or the nutrition to support life. Something's gotta happen regardless of whether everyone is being fed or not. There will be a tipping point and it's not going to be pretty. But who cares right. Keep on keeping on because right now it's good still.