S5.20 Bread and fishes: the future of food in a changing climate
Hello, and welcome to Genetics Unzipped - the Genetics Society podcast, with me, Dr Sally Le Page. In this episode we’re looking at the future of food. With climate change making crop harvests more unpredictable and fresh water becoming a more scarce resource, what are geneticists doing to make sure we will still have food on our plates?
How often do you think about food? And I don’t just mean thinking about what you’re having for dinner, or thinking about whether or not to have that bar of chocolate. How often do you think about where the food on your plate comes from, how it was grown or reared, and how much you can depend on that food being available in the future?
Image courtesy of Hannah Rees
Hannah Rees: giving wheat jet lag
Food security is an ever increasing problem for the planet. You’ve probably already noticed that your weekly food shop at the supermarket is costing a lot more than it used to. Wheat in particular is in short supply. Yes, the war in Ukraine has been a factor, as Russia and Ukraine are the first and fifth largest exporters of wheat in the world, but it’s not the only factor.
In 2021, heatwaves and droughts reduced wheat yields in the US and Canada, the second and third largest wheat exporters, and in the same year excessive rain flooded crops in China. This year, India decided to ban the export of wheat as record breaking heatwaves caused widespread crop failures, and swathes of Pakistan are still underwater, right when farmers would normally be planting next year’s crop.
Clearly we need to make wheat a more reliable and resilient crop in the face of our ever changing climate, and that’s where geneticists like Dr Hannah Rees from the Earlham Institute in Norwich come in. Kat Arney sat down with Hannah to find out how understanding the basic biology of wheat is helping us produce a more future-proof plant.
Tarang Mehta: super fish for fish suppers
We’ve just heard how geneticists are working to make wheat a more reliable crop for the future. Now we’re going to be moving from bread to the fishes, and the future of fish farming.
Across the world, over 3 billion people, or nearly half the global population, rely on fish as a significant source of animal protein, and since 2012, more of our fish has come from aquaculture or fish farms rather than catching wild fish. As the global population continues to grow, farmed fish are going to become an increasingly important protein source, but fish farming is not without its own issues.
The amount of freshwater fish eaten each year continues to increase, but fresh water is already a scarce resource and one that is only going to become more precarious as climate change intensifies. Farmed fish need to be fed, and so in the case of predatory species like salmon, we currently have to catch fish from the wild to feed the farmed salmon.
Dr Tarang Mehta is a molecular evolution scientist at the Earlham Institute who has been looking at future-proofing one group of fishes in particular, tilapia, which is already a hugely important fish for people around the world, as I found out during our chat.
Image courtesy of Tarang Mehta
That’s all for now. Thanks to our guests, Drs Hannah Rees and Tarang Mehta from the Earlham Institute.
We’ll be back next time where Kat Arney will be looking at how genes have shaped human evolution. And if this episode has whet your appetite and you want to learn more about the genetics of your food and the future of agriculture, keep an eye out for a special bonus episode on our feed next week all about the genetics of rice.
For more information about this podcast including show notes, transcripts, links, references, music credits and everything else head over to geneticsunzipped.com You can find us on Twitter @geneticsunzip and please do take a moment to leave us a rating in the Spotify app or review us on Apple podcasts - it really does make a difference and helps more people discover the show.
This episode of Genetics Unzipped was written, presented and produced by me, Dr Sally Le Page. It is made by First Create the Media for The Genetics Society - one of the oldest learned societies dedicated to promoting research, training, teaching and public engagement in all areas of genetics. You can find out more and apply to join at genetics.org.uk. Our theme music was composed by Dan Pollard, the logo was designed by James Mayall, and the audio production was by Emma Werner. Thanks for listening, and until next time, goodbye.
