Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information or to customize your cookie preferences.

Accept Deny

GoGreenNation news

Seeds from Wild Crop Relatives Could Help Agriculture Weather Climate Change

News Feed
Monday, April 22, 2024

In the rugged Tumacácori mountain region 45 minutes south of Tucson, the Wild Chile Botanical Area (WCBA) was established in 1999 to protect and study the chiltepin pepper—the single wild relative of hundreds of sweet and hot varieties including jalapeño, cayenne, and bell peppers, found on dinner plates worldwide. The isolation of this ecologically rich archipelago of peaks, located in a “sea” of desert that stretches from northern Mexico into southern Arizona, means that plants grow here that don’t grow anywhere else. Its 2,800 acres—the first protected habitat for the wild relatives of crops in the United States—now shelter not just a single pepper but at least 45 different species. Between 2021 and 2022, the Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN), an Arizona-based conservation non-profit, worked with the U.S. Forest Service to identify and collect other wild relatives of crops in this area. The idea behind the project was to build food security in a world where all climate models are pointing to hotter and dryer extreme conditions. “You have this dramatic topography that provides all these different ecological niches for different things to grow,” said Perin McNelis, 36, native plant program director at the BRN. “Where better to start than an area that is already hot and dry, with all these wild relatives that are really adapted to conditions that will be more widespread in the future.” Crop wild relatives, or CWRs for short, are the hardy wild cousins of domesticated crops. In the U.S. alone, thousands of crop wild relatives exist in their natural habitats, often thriving in harsh conditions. In Arizona this includes wild species of onion, wheat, squash, strawberry, grape and many other important crops.  Increasingly, farmers and scientists are looking at them as reservoirs of genetic diversity with traits that can be bred into domesticated crops to improve drought, heat, and disease resistance—and perhaps serve as the key to the future of farming. “What makes them important is they have traits that can help crops be more adapted and resilient to climate change,” said Stephanie Greene, a retired plant geneticist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service. Erin Riordan, a conservation research scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson, works to expand the regional food system to include dryland-adapted plants such as agave, mesquite, prickly pear, and tepary beans with low-water use agricultural practices. For instance, tepary beans—a tiny brown bean with a sweet chestnut flavor—require about 1/5 the water of pinto beans. Arizona is the third driest state in the U.S. It also has the highest diversity of crop wild relatives due to the state’s wide-ranging topography and habitats, “from low deserts to high elevation alpine, to everything in between,” said Riordan. One thousand of the estimated 4,500 CWRs in the U.S. are found in the state, including desert-adapted relatives of critical domesticated foods—not just peppers, but also tomatoes, squash, amaranth, beans, corn, and wheat. An Arizona Walnut tree. (Photo CC-licensed by Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University.) Wild cotton grows in the parched grasslands of the Sonoran Desert, surviving without irrigation, pesticides, or other human inputs that domesticated cotton depends on. The wild Arizona walnut, found in desert riparian areas,  has been used as a rootstalk for domesticated walnut trees to increase their tolerance to drought and diseases. Currently, 44 percent of the world’s food is produced in arid and semi-arid lands. According to a 2017 report from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, “80 percent of global cropland and 60 percent of global food output could be markedly affected by climate change, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas.” Riordan said protecting desert-adapted CWRs will be particularly important in a changing climate. One issue complicating the use of wild relatives as a solution, however, is that these banks of genetic resilience are under threat through habitat destruction and global biodiversity loss caused by development and climate change. A 2020 paper in the National Academy of Sciences’ journal found that over half of the 600 CWRs identified in the study were either endangered or threatened. When a wild species goes extinct, so do the evolutionary traits that have allowed it to survive environmental extremes. While the momentum for studying and conserving crop wild relatives has grown in recent years, few CWR species are protected at either a state or federal level. Arizona has been at the forefront of conservation efforts, protecting CWRs on public lands like the WCBA, at botanical gardens like at the Desert Museum, and at seed banks. Heat Stress, Water Scarcity, and the Need to Adapt Last year was the world’s hottest summer on record; in Arizona, temperatures routinely exceeded 110 degrees. Across the state, crops withered in the punishing dry heat, and farmers left land fallow amid statewide water cutbacks driven by a historic megadrought. “These last few years are indicative of the sorts of extreme conditions that are increasingly becoming the new norm,” Riordan said. “Arizona farmers have always experienced periodic drought and bouts of heat, but these events are happening with greater frequency, becoming more severe, and lasting longer.” At the same time, other sources of water are becoming increasingly scarce in the west, putting stress on farmers and making some crops untenable. Last year, Arizona’s allotment from the Colorado River was cut by 21 percent. “These last few years are indicative of the sorts of extreme conditions that are increasingly becoming the new norm.” Benjamin Ruddell, director of the National Water-Economy Project, said that Colorado River water shortages left large areas of farmland in Arizona unsowed, a bellwether of things to come. “Up to 40 percent of farmland has been fallowed in some parts of Arizona,” he wrote in an email. Additionally, in some parts of the Southwest, states are paying farmers to fallow their fields to save water. According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, three quarters of Arizona’s total water supply is used for agriculture. “It’s going to be increasingly less feasible to irrigate things,” said Riordan. “If you’re not relying on surface flows, you’re relying on fossil water [groundwater], and we don’t have enough rain to be recharging.” Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a Hopi dryland farmer and academic, pointed out that for millennia, Hopi farmers have successfully farmed, without irrigation, on ancestral lands that receive an average of 10 inches of rain or less per year. Farmers plant seeds deep in the soil, use passive rainwater harvesting, and rely on hardy desert-adapted seeds. “Our seeds are very resilient,” said Johnson. “They are just amazing in the way they can survive heat and lack of irrigation.” Johnson said that unlike conventional farming, every aspect of Hopi farming has been refined to retain soil moisture with agricultural practices and crops that fit the environment, not the other way around. Counter to this approach, many crops grown in Arizona require vast amounts of water and are maladapted to the environment, Johnson said. “As the temperature increases in Arizona, more water will be needed for commodity crops like cotton and alfalfa,” he said. “Those two crops are not place-based and will require even more water in the future.” For Johnson, statewide water scarcity will require a move away from these water-thirsty crops towards desert-adapted varieties. “We need crops that use less water,” he said. “Our seeds are very resilient. They are just amazing in the way they can survive heat and lack of irrigation.” Author and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has been studying crop wild relatives for over 50 years. According to Nabhan, plant breeders and agronomists have been slow to accept the fact that we need desert-adapted crops, even as all signs point to a hotter, dryer future. “For nearly a century, crop wild relatives were neglected because plant breeders did not need drought and heat tolerance as long as they had plenty of irrigation water,” said Nabhan. As a university student in the late ‘70s, Nabhan recalls a professor explaining why desert-adapted crops were unnecessary. “‘The more water you put on a crop, the more yield you get. We have the water, so why would you want to go back?’” said Nabhan of the conversation. “I mean, it’s just amazing in retrospect that he said that to me in 1976. [They saw] water as unlimited.” With growing heat stress and water scarcity, breeders will increasingly need the genetics from their desert-adapted cousins to survive. “Wild crop relatives will be the only alternative to deal with climatic changes on two fifths to one half of the continental U.S.,” said Nabhan about the impact of global warming on our semi-arid and arid lands. Nationally, the Botanic Garden Conservation International (BGCI) and the U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) are working to increase the number of crop wild relatives at botanical gardens to fill gaps in gene bank collection and maintain samples from wild populations. But while some are working to identify and protect CWRs, Nabhan believes much more needs to be done. “Federal agencies have hardly ever invested time or funds in their protection or management,” he said. Protecting and Breeding CRWs Access to the critical traits crop wild relatives possess requires protection both in the wild and in the lab, said Riordan and the BRN’s McNelis. Both are proponents of a “trans-situ” approach to CWR conservation, or the combination of in-situ (on-site) protection of plants in their native habitats and ex-situ (off-site) conservation at seedbanks, gene banks, and gardens. “We have these important efforts to conserve them, both through protecting their wild habitats and through these backup collections,” said Riordan. Once researchers identify a desirable trait, breeders can cross pollinate the CWR with a domesticated crop. “The more genetically related the CWR and crop, the easier this is to do,” said the USDA’s Greene. Examples of wild and domesticated forms of crops. The first image of each row is the wild relative. a) teosinte and maize (Zea mays); b) chilli pepper (Capsicum annuum); c) common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); d) cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). (Images CC-licensed, from Botanical Sciences 95(3):345). Past examples include breeding wild wheat with domesticated varieties to boost disease resistance. Wild relatives of potatoes have been used to increase frost resistance and blight—the cause of the devastating Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century. Sunflower wild relatives “have contributed genes for disease resistance, salt tolerance, and resistance to herbicides,” said Greene.  Another notable success story was the introduction of hardy American grape rootstalks to help counter Phylloxera, an aphid-like insect that nearly wiped out European Vitis vinifera. Nabhan said root stalks from crop wild relatives, such as grapes, hold vast potential as well. “Using hardy wild root stalks on grapes, apples, raspberries, blackberries is really viable,” he said. This is already being done on a commercial level. . . . It’s not pie in the sky.” Increasingly scientists are using molecular techniques to bring adaptive traits from CWRs into domesticated species through precise genome editing. Using CRISPR, researchers have modified genes from wild tomato relatives to increase fruit size and nutrition in an engineered tomato crop. A Botanical Area and a Desert Museum In Arizona’s Wild Chili Botanical Area, unique regulations help protect the CWRs, including an exclusion on cattle, limits on extractive industries such as mining, and the banning of road construction. To identify CWRs in the area during the recent survey, McNelis explored a remote portion of the Coronado National Forest, helping identify high-priority species such as canyon grapes, desert cotton, black walnut trees, tepary beans, and wild relatives of corn and wheat. She found many species surviving in nutrient-poor soils, growing on rock faces, or in overgrazed and disturbed environments. “It really does speak to what persists in this landscape,” said McNelis. Her experience reinforced the importance of preserving CWR in what she described as an era of mass extinction. “The genetic material holds so much potential for creating more resilient crops in a world where extreme climate events are likely to occur.” Meanwhile, at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Riordan is heading up a first-of-its-kind research program to conserve arid-adapted crop wild relatives. The 98-acre complex is a combination of zoo, aquarium, natural history museum, and botanical garden that includes one the largest living collections of crop wild relatives in the United States. “The Desert Museum is leading an effort to better understand and conserve the CWRs of the Sonoran Desert region by documenting important species, developing conservation priorities, and building partnerships,” including a collaboration with the Desert Museum in Phoenix and the Chicago Botanical Garden, said Riordan of the project. “Botanical gardens like this one play a key role in conservation,” said Riordan, as we walk past a mountain lion in the mountain woodland exhibit. Organized into various biomes of the Sonoran Desert, the museum has over 200 CWRs in its live plant and seed bank collections. One-hundred-thirty crop wild relatives are grown outdoors in the climate of southern Arizona, where desert adaptions can be maintained. “We need to keep that selective pressure of the heat and the drought on the plants,” said Riordan, pausing at a  grapevine covering a section of rock wall. This crop wild relative, Vitis arizonica, grows in the canyons of Arizona and is being studied for its potential to improve disease resistance in wine grapes. Other important CWRs at the museum include relatives of domesticated beans, sunflowers, and peppers–including the chiltepin, which also thrives in the mountains and canyons of northern Mexico. “I picked them from the side of the road in Sonora,” she said, opening a plastic container with a few dozen sun-dried samples. The fiery peppers have a fruity vegetable aroma and a smoky sweet heat that builds and lingers. Later, we pass a wild tepary bean plant, the ancestor of the legume domesticated by Indigenous Sonorans many centuries ago. From her satchel, she takes out a container of the small speckled wild beans, along with another bag holding a dozen or so brown domesticated versions. These cultivated teparies are nutrient and protein dense and far more climate resilient than the much more common pinto bean. “[This is] a result of thousands of years of native desert peoples domesticating a wild plant into an incredibly heat-hardy and drought tolerant crop,” said Riordan. Further along the path is a desert cotton plant—long utilized by indigenous Sonorans. A ProPublica investigation found that conventional cotton grown in Arizona requires six times more water than lettuce and 60 percent more than wheat. Its existence is made possible by massive federal subsidies and billions of gallons of water imported into Arizona to grow cotton as well as water-thirsty crops such as alfalfa, corn, and pecans. Though it bears a close physical resemblance to domesticated cotton, the drought-tolerant shrub growing in the botanical garden requires a fraction of the water. This species, she explained, has been researched for “drought resistance, salt tolerance, pest resistance, and crop quality.” It is also critically endangered. “It’s thousands of years of adaptation,” said Riordan. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.” The post Seeds from Wild Crop Relatives Could Help Agriculture Weather Climate Change appeared first on Civil Eats.

The isolation of this ecologically rich archipelago of peaks, located in a “sea” of desert that stretches from northern Mexico into southern Arizona, means that plants grow here that don’t grow anywhere else. Its 2,800 acres—the first protected habitat for the wild relatives of crops in the United States—now shelter not just a single pepper but […] The post Seeds from Wild Crop Relatives Could Help Agriculture Weather Climate Change appeared first on Civil Eats.

In the rugged Tumacácori mountain region 45 minutes south of Tucson, the Wild Chile Botanical Area (WCBA) was established in 1999 to protect and study the chiltepin pepper—the single wild relative of hundreds of sweet and hot varieties including jalapeño, cayenne, and bell peppers, found on dinner plates worldwide.

The isolation of this ecologically rich archipelago of peaks, located in a “sea” of desert that stretches from northern Mexico into southern Arizona, means that plants grow here that don’t grow anywhere else. Its 2,800 acres—the first protected habitat for the wild relatives of crops in the United States—now shelter not just a single pepper but at least 45 different species.

Between 2021 and 2022, the Borderlands Restoration Network (BRN), an Arizona-based conservation non-profit, worked with the U.S. Forest Service to identify and collect other wild relatives of crops in this area. The idea behind the project was to build food security in a world where all climate models are pointing to hotter and dryer extreme conditions.

“You have this dramatic topography that provides all these different ecological niches for different things to grow,” said Perin McNelis, 36, native plant program director at the BRN. “Where better to start than an area that is already hot and dry, with all these wild relatives that are really adapted to conditions that will be more widespread in the future.”

Crop wild relatives, or CWRs for short, are the hardy wild cousins of domesticated crops. In the U.S. alone, thousands of crop wild relatives exist in their natural habitats, often thriving in harsh conditions. In Arizona this includes wild species of onion, wheat, squash, strawberry, grape and many other important crops.  Increasingly, farmers and scientists are looking at them as reservoirs of genetic diversity with traits that can be bred into domesticated crops to improve drought, heat, and disease resistance—and perhaps serve as the key to the future of farming.

“What makes them important is they have traits that can help crops be more adapted and resilient to climate change,” said Stephanie Greene, a retired plant geneticist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service.

Erin Riordan, a conservation research scientist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum outside Tucson, works to expand the regional food system to include dryland-adapted plants such as agave, mesquite, prickly pear, and tepary beans with low-water use agricultural practices. For instance, tepary beans—a tiny brown bean with a sweet chestnut flavor—require about 1/5 the water of pinto beans.

Arizona is the third driest state in the U.S. It also has the highest diversity of crop wild relatives due to the state’s wide-ranging topography and habitats, “from low deserts to high elevation alpine, to everything in between,” said Riordan. One thousand of the estimated 4,500 CWRs in the U.S. are found in the state, including desert-adapted relatives of critical domesticated foods—not just peppers, but also tomatoes, squash, amaranth, beans, corn, and wheat.

An Arizona Walnut tree. (Photo CC-licensed by Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University.)

An Arizona Walnut tree. (Photo CC-licensed by Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University.)

Wild cotton grows in the parched grasslands of the Sonoran Desert, surviving without irrigation, pesticides, or other human inputs that domesticated cotton depends on. The wild Arizona walnut, found in desert riparian areas,  has been used as a rootstalk for domesticated walnut trees to increase their tolerance to drought and diseases.

Currently, 44 percent of the world’s food is produced in arid and semi-arid lands. According to a 2017 report from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, “80 percent of global cropland and 60 percent of global food output could be markedly affected by climate change, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas.” Riordan said protecting desert-adapted CWRs will be particularly important in a changing climate.

One issue complicating the use of wild relatives as a solution, however, is that these banks of genetic resilience are under threat through habitat destruction and global biodiversity loss caused by development and climate change. A 2020 paper in the National Academy of Sciences’ journal found that over half of the 600 CWRs identified in the study were either endangered or threatened. When a wild species goes extinct, so do the evolutionary traits that have allowed it to survive environmental extremes.

While the momentum for studying and conserving crop wild relatives has grown in recent years, few CWR species are protected at either a state or federal level. Arizona has been at the forefront of conservation efforts, protecting CWRs on public lands like the WCBA, at botanical gardens like at the Desert Museum, and at seed banks.

Heat Stress, Water Scarcity, and the Need to Adapt

Last year was the world’s hottest summer on record; in Arizona, temperatures routinely exceeded 110 degrees. Across the state, crops withered in the punishing dry heat, and farmers left land fallow amid statewide water cutbacks driven by a historic megadrought.

“These last few years are indicative of the sorts of extreme conditions that are increasingly becoming the new norm,” Riordan said. “Arizona farmers have always experienced periodic drought and bouts of heat, but these events are happening with greater frequency, becoming more severe, and lasting longer.”

At the same time, other sources of water are becoming increasingly scarce in the west, putting stress on farmers and making some crops untenable. Last year, Arizona’s allotment from the Colorado River was cut by 21 percent.

“These last few years are indicative of the sorts of extreme conditions that are increasingly becoming the new norm.”

Benjamin Ruddell, director of the National Water-Economy Project, said that Colorado River water shortages left large areas of farmland in Arizona unsowed, a bellwether of things to come. “Up to 40 percent of farmland has been fallowed in some parts of Arizona,” he wrote in an email. Additionally, in some parts of the Southwest, states are paying farmers to fallow their fields to save water.

According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, three quarters of Arizona’s total water supply is used for agriculture. “It’s going to be increasingly less feasible to irrigate things,” said Riordan. “If you’re not relying on surface flows, you’re relying on fossil water [groundwater], and we don’t have enough rain to be recharging.”

Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a Hopi dryland farmer and academic, pointed out that for millennia, Hopi farmers have successfully farmed, without irrigation, on ancestral lands that receive an average of 10 inches of rain or less per year. Farmers plant seeds deep in the soil, use passive rainwater harvesting, and rely on hardy desert-adapted seeds. “Our seeds are very resilient,” said Johnson. “They are just amazing in the way they can survive heat and lack of irrigation.”

Johnson said that unlike conventional farming, every aspect of Hopi farming has been refined to retain soil moisture with agricultural practices and crops that fit the environment, not the other way around.

Counter to this approach, many crops grown in Arizona require vast amounts of water and are maladapted to the environment, Johnson said. “As the temperature increases in Arizona, more water will be needed for commodity crops like cotton and alfalfa,” he said. “Those two crops are not place-based and will require even more water in the future.”

For Johnson, statewide water scarcity will require a move away from these water-thirsty crops towards desert-adapted varieties. “We need crops that use less water,” he said.

“Our seeds are very resilient. They are just amazing in the way they can survive heat and lack of irrigation.”

Author and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has been studying crop wild relatives for over 50 years. According to Nabhan, plant breeders and agronomists have been slow to accept the fact that we need desert-adapted crops, even as all signs point to a hotter, dryer future. “For nearly a century, crop wild relatives were neglected because plant breeders did not need drought and heat tolerance as long as they had plenty of irrigation water,” said Nabhan.

As a university student in the late ‘70s, Nabhan recalls a professor explaining why desert-adapted crops were unnecessary. “‘The more water you put on a crop, the more yield you get. We have the water, so why would you want to go back?’” said Nabhan of the conversation. “I mean, it’s just amazing in retrospect that he said that to me in 1976. [They saw] water as unlimited.”

With growing heat stress and water scarcity, breeders will increasingly need the genetics from their desert-adapted cousins to survive. “Wild crop relatives will be the only alternative to deal with climatic changes on two fifths to one half of the continental U.S.,” said Nabhan about the impact of global warming on our semi-arid and arid lands.

Nationally, the Botanic Garden Conservation International (BGCI) and the U.S. Botanic Garden (USBG) are working to increase the number of crop wild relatives at botanical gardens to fill gaps in gene bank collection and maintain samples from wild populations.

But while some are working to identify and protect CWRs, Nabhan believes much more needs to be done. “Federal agencies have hardly ever invested time or funds in their protection or management,” he said.

Protecting and Breeding CRWs

Access to the critical traits crop wild relatives possess requires protection both in the wild and in the lab, said Riordan and the BRN’s McNelis.

Both are proponents of a “trans-situ” approach to CWR conservation, or the combination of in-situ (on-site) protection of plants in their native habitats and ex-situ (off-site) conservation at seedbanks, gene banks, and gardens. “We have these important efforts to conserve them, both through protecting their wild habitats and through these backup collections,” said Riordan.

Once researchers identify a desirable trait, breeders can cross pollinate the CWR with a domesticated crop. “The more genetically related the CWR and crop, the easier this is to do,” said the USDA’s Greene.

Examples of wild and domesticated forms of crops. The first image of each row is the wild relative. a) teosinte and maize (Zea mays); b) chilli pepper (Capsicum annuum); c) common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); d) cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). Images taken from CONABIO.and CIAT and CIAT.

Examples of wild and domesticated forms of crops. The first image of each row is the wild relative. a) teosinte and maize (Zea mays); b) chilli pepper (Capsicum annuum); c) common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris); d) cotton (Gossypium hirsutum). (Images CC-licensed, from Botanical Sciences 95(3):345).

Past examples include breeding wild wheat with domesticated varieties to boost disease resistance. Wild relatives of potatoes have been used to increase frost resistance and blight—the cause of the devastating Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century. Sunflower wild relatives “have contributed genes for disease resistance, salt tolerance, and resistance to herbicides,” said Greene.  Another notable success story was the introduction of hardy American grape rootstalks to help counter Phylloxera, an aphid-like insect that nearly wiped out European Vitis vinifera.

Nabhan said root stalks from crop wild relatives, such as grapes, hold vast potential as well. “Using hardy wild root stalks on grapes, apples, raspberries, blackberries is really viable,” he said. This is already being done on a commercial level. . . . It’s not pie in the sky.”

Increasingly scientists are using molecular techniques to bring adaptive traits from CWRs into domesticated species through precise genome editing. Using CRISPR, researchers have modified genes from wild tomato relatives to increase fruit size and nutrition in an engineered tomato crop.

A Botanical Area and a Desert Museum

In Arizona’s Wild Chili Botanical Area, unique regulations help protect the CWRs, including an exclusion on cattle, limits on extractive industries such as mining, and the banning of road construction.

To identify CWRs in the area during the recent survey, McNelis explored a remote portion of the Coronado National Forest, helping identify high-priority species such as canyon grapes, desert cotton, black walnut trees, tepary beans, and wild relatives of corn and wheat. She found many species surviving in nutrient-poor soils, growing on rock faces, or in overgrazed and disturbed environments.

“It really does speak to what persists in this landscape,” said McNelis. Her experience reinforced the importance of preserving CWR in what she described as an era of mass extinction. “The genetic material holds so much potential for creating more resilient crops in a world where extreme climate events are likely to occur.”

Meanwhile, at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Riordan is heading up a first-of-its-kind research program to conserve arid-adapted crop wild relatives. The 98-acre complex is a combination of zoo, aquarium, natural history museum, and botanical garden that includes one the largest living collections of crop wild relatives in the United States.

“The Desert Museum is leading an effort to better understand and conserve the CWRs of the Sonoran Desert region by documenting important species, developing conservation priorities, and building partnerships,” including a collaboration with the Desert Museum in Phoenix and the Chicago Botanical Garden, said Riordan of the project.

“Botanical gardens like this one play a key role in conservation,” said Riordan, as we walk past a mountain lion in the mountain woodland exhibit. Organized into various biomes of the Sonoran Desert, the museum has over 200 CWRs in its live plant and seed bank collections. One-hundred-thirty crop wild relatives are grown outdoors in the climate of southern Arizona, where desert adaptions can be maintained.

“We need to keep that selective pressure of the heat and the drought on the plants,” said Riordan, pausing at a  grapevine covering a section of rock wall. This crop wild relative, Vitis arizonica, grows in the canyons of Arizona and is being studied for its potential to improve disease resistance in wine grapes.

Other important CWRs at the museum include relatives of domesticated beans, sunflowers, and peppers–including the chiltepin, which also thrives in the mountains and canyons of northern Mexico. “I picked them from the side of the road in Sonora,” she said, opening a plastic container with a few dozen sun-dried samples. The fiery peppers have a fruity vegetable aroma and a smoky sweet heat that builds and lingers.

Later, we pass a wild tepary bean plant, the ancestor of the legume domesticated by Indigenous Sonorans many centuries ago.

From her satchel, she takes out a container of the small speckled wild beans, along with another bag holding a dozen or so brown domesticated versions. These cultivated teparies are nutrient and protein dense and far more climate resilient than the much more common pinto bean.

“[This is] a result of thousands of years of native desert peoples domesticating a wild plant into an incredibly heat-hardy and drought tolerant crop,” said Riordan.

Further along the path is a desert cotton plant—long utilized by indigenous Sonorans. A ProPublica investigation found that conventional cotton grown in Arizona requires six times more water than lettuce and 60 percent more than wheat. Its existence is made possible by massive federal subsidies and billions of gallons of water imported into Arizona to grow cotton as well as water-thirsty crops such as alfalfa, corn, and pecans.

Though it bears a close physical resemblance to domesticated cotton, the drought-tolerant shrub growing in the botanical garden requires a fraction of the water. This species, she explained, has been researched for “drought resistance, salt tolerance, pest resistance, and crop quality.” It is also critically endangered.

“It’s thousands of years of adaptation,” said Riordan. “When it’s gone, it’s gone.”

The post Seeds from Wild Crop Relatives Could Help Agriculture Weather Climate Change appeared first on Civil Eats.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

What This Week's Winter Wallop Means for Farmers Across the U.S.

This week’s winter wallop across the U.S. means different things to farmers in different places

Farmers always watch the weather, but depending on where they're located and what they produce, winter always presents mental challenges for growers, said Carolyn Olson, an organic farmer in southwestern Minnesota who is also vice president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors.Producers know that the timing and amount of winter moisture affect farming conditions for the rest of the year. It's also a time for planning ahead — something becoming increasingly difficult as climate change ramps up variability in snowfall, rainfall and other weather conditions that can make or break an operation. “They’re doing that stressful part of making those decisions on how they’re going to farm this year, what they’re going to grow,” Olson said. “It’s just a lot of pressure on agriculture at this time of the year." Livestock producers dealing with ‘generational storm’ Biting wind and big drifts from almost a whole year's average snowfall in a single storm are hitting farmers in some parts of Kansas “in ways that we haven’t seen in this area for a very, very long time, potentially a lifetime,” said Chip Redmond, a meteorologist at Kansas State University who developed an animal comfort tool. It includes an index of heat and cold that a farmer can use — along with their knowledge of their animals' age, coat, overall health and so forth — to watch for situations when they may need to get animals out of dangerous areas.The risk is real: Calves, especially, can die when temperatures slip below zero. And so much snow in rural areas can keep farmers from reaching herds with food and water, Redmond said.That means preparing by moving animals and having a plan to care for them ahead of time is key — which is harder due to the unpredictability of climate change. And not having the right experience or infrastructure to prepare is “really, really stressful on producers,” Redmond said. Reprieve for some typically snowy areas The storm missed some states further north like Iowa and Minnesota that are generally more accustomed to snow. Stu Swanson, president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, said that eases tasks like moving grain and working with livestock. He added that without snow cover, the ground is more likely to freeze and thaw in a way that could benefit soils. Two years of drought followed by torrential rains last spring created tire ruts and compaction from farm machinery in some places, he said. He hopes that without as much snow, the freeze-thaw cycle will loosen up the soil and farmers may get the added bonus of some pests dying off before the spring.“We don’t have any growing crop now, so really temperature doesn’t matter. We look forward to a good freeze,” Swanson said. ‘Feast or famine’: Extremes and unpredictability worry some farmers The lack of snow is a greater concern farther north in some parts of Minnesota, where producers do have winter crops like alfalfa or winter wheat. Reliable snow cover is important in those areas because it insulates soil from cold. A few of inches of snow on top of a field can keep winter wheat’s crown (which is still underground this time of year to withstand the winter) at 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 Celsius) even if the air temperature is as low as minus 40 Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius), said Jochum Wiersma, an extension professor at the University of Minnesota.“There’s not a lot you can do, unfortunately,” when ice breaks a plant's crown, said Martin Larsen, who grows alfalfa in addition to other crops like corn in southeastern Minnesota. He's concerned about the long-term trends, too — he pointed out last year's likely record warmth — and said he noticed the lack of snow cover in his region then, too.“We were so dry going into last spring and we were in the field almost a month before we normally do. I would say that concern exists this year as well," Larsen said.Gary Prescher, who has been farming a small grain operation for about 50 years in south-central Minnesota, said he's noticed more variability over the past six to 10 years. That's changing his long-term philosophy on the farm. He said he wants to make sure his operation can handle more extreme weather events, and that excess heat, cold, dryness, wetness or wind have “forced some changes out here for me and my neighbors.”“If you’re just looking at averages, it’s very deceiving,” he said. “It's either all or none.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

Agriculture
Animals
Climate

Monarch butterflies are in decline in NZ and Australia – they need your help to track where they gather

Citizen scientists are called on to help with tagging monarch butterflies and find out why their numbers are dropping.

Kathy Reid, CC BY-SAMonarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) appear to be declining not just in North America but also in Australiasia. Could this be a consequence of global change, including climate change, the intensification of agriculture, and urbanisation? We need more citizen scientists to monitor what is really going on. Insect populations, even species that seemed impervious, are in decline globally. Monarch butterflies exemplify the problem. Once a very common species, numbers have declined dramatically in North America, engendering keen public interest in restoring populations. The monarch butterfly is an iconic species. It is usually the species people recall when drawing a butterfly and observations are shared frequently on the online social network iNaturalist. This is partly because monarch images are used in advertising, but the butterflies are also a species of choice for school biology classes and television documentaries on animal migration. Monarchs in the southern hemisphere Monarchs expanded their range to reach Australia and New Zealand during the mid-1800s. Kathy Reid, CC BY-SA The monarch butterfly’s ancestral home in North America is noted for an annual mass migration and spectacular overwintering of adults in fir forests in a few locations in Mexico, at densities of 50 million per hectare, and at multiple sites in Southern California. These sites are monitored to track the decline. What is not as well known is that this butterfly greatly extended its range, spreading across the Pacific in the mid-1800s to reach Australia and New Zealand by riding on storms that blew in from New Caledonia. The species is now part of the roadside scene in these countries and was once known as “the wanderer” – reflecting its propensity to fly across the landscape in search of milkweed plants (known as swan plants in New Zealand). In both countries, monarchs lay eggs on introduced milkweed species for their caterpillars to feed and develop. They take up the plant’s toxins as part of their own defence. Interestingly, in their expanded range in the southern hemisphere, monarchs have adapted their migration patterns to suit local conditions. They have established overwinter sites – places where large numbers of adults congregate on trees throughout winter. Need for citizen science In Australia, the late entomologist Courtenay Smithers organised people to report these sites and participate in a mark-recapture programme. Essentially, this involves attaching a small unique identifying tag to the wing, noting the age and condition of the butterfly and the date and location of capture. If the same individual is then recaptured sometime later and the information shared, it provides valuable data on survival and the distance and direction it moved, and even population size. This volunteer tagging programme enabled many aspects of the monarch’s ecology in Australia to be documented, but it was discontinued a few years ago. Moths and Butterflies Australasia now hosts the butterfly database and has become an umbrella group for encouraging everyone with a mobile phone to get involved and report and record sightings. Monarchs have established wintering sites in New Zealand and Australia. Kathy Reid, CC BY-SA A similar programme is run in New Zealand by the Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust. Monarch overwintering sites and local breeding populations have been documented over the years. Alas, these data sets have been short term and haphazard. What is intriguing is that populations appear to have declined in Australia and New Zealand, perhaps reflecting climate variability, expanding cities gobbling up local breeding habitats, and the intensification of agriculture. What we need is reliable long-term data on adult numbers. Hence the call to reinvigorate interest in mark-recapture and reporting. We need the help of people who love the outdoors and love the monarch butterfly to become citizen scientists. Citizen scientists are needed to help with tagging monarch butterflies. Anna Barnett, CC BY-SA The Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust is asking individuals, groups and schools to tag monarch butterflies late in the autumn when the butterflies head for their overwintering habitat. This is a great project for schools, involving students in real science and addressing an environmental issue. Each tag has a unique code. A computer system calculates the distance the monarch has flown and the time it took to get there. This information can then be collated with weather data to get a clearer picture of what is happening. We hope people will spot tagged monarchs in their gardens and record where the butterfly was sighted, together with its tag number. The author wishes to thank Washington State University entomologist David James and Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand trustee Jacqui Knight for their input, and Australian National University ecologist Michael Braby for comments. Myron Zalucki does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Agriculture
Animals
Climate

AI use cases are going to get even bigger in 2025

Over the past two years, generative AI has dominated tech conversations and media headlines. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Midjourney, and Sora captured imaginations with their ability to create text, images, and videos, sparking both excitement and ethical debates. However, artificial intelligence goes far beyond generative AI—which is just a subset of AI—and its associated models. AI’s real promise lies in its ability to address complex challenges across diverse industries, from military technology to cybersecurity, medicine, and even genome sequencing. As we move into 2025 and beyond, the question isn’t whether AI use cases will expand—it’s how big and transformative they’ll get. MILITARY TACTICS AND INTELLIGENCE Few sectors stand to gain more from AI advancements than defense. “We are witnessing a surge in applications like autonomous drone swarms, electronic spectrum awareness, and real-time battlefield space management, where AI, edge computing, and sensor technologies are integrated to enable faster responses and enhanced precision,” says Meir Friedland, CEO at RF spectrum intelligence company Sensorz. Friedland notes that recent conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and across the Middle East, have highlighted critical vulnerabilities in military operations, from tactical to strategic levels—a factor he says will drive the adoption of AI use cases in the military. While Axios said in April that AI hit trust hurdles with the U.S. military, Friedland notes that with the rise of global tensions and defense budgets at an all-time high, “we can expect significant investment in AI to maintain a combat edge.” For Friedland, the defense sector’s growing embrace of innovation from startups like Palantir and Anduril reflects how AI is going to increasingly change things across the global defense sector. CRACKING THE CODE OF LIFE The healthcare sector is witnessing a sharp rise in AI-driven innovation, especially in precision medicine and genome sequencing, transforming how diseases are understood and treated. For many years, scientists and medical professionals have been trying to understand human DNA in an attempt to crack the code that powers life as we know it. Now, with new AI models like GROVER, they have a real chance at getting closer to that goal, Science Daily reports. “AI is transforming genome sequencing, enabling faster and more accurate analyses of genetic data,” Khalfan Belhoul, CEO at the Dubai Future Foundation, tells Fast Company. “Already, the largest genome banks in the U.K. and the UAE each have over half a million samples, but soon, one genome bank will surpass this with a million samples.” But what does this mean? “It means we are entering an era where healthcare can truly become personalized, where we can anticipate and prevent certain diseases before they even develop,” Belhoul says. Genome banks, powered by AI, are facilitating the storage and retrieval of vast amounts of genetic data, which can be analyzed to identify patterns and predispositions to certain diseases. Beyond diagnostics, AI is playing a pivotal role in drug development, accelerating the discovery of therapies for complex diseases. By analyzing genetic mutations and environmental factors, AI enables researchers to design treatments tailored to individual patients. “These tools are not only improving outcomes but also reducing costs and timelines associated with traditional medical research,” says Belhoul. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION INTELLIGENCE Today, businesses swim in a vast ocean of applications—spanning email, messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage, and collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams—that eventually make communication fragmented and often get important details lost in silos. But AI agents like LeapXpert’s patented Maxen are solving this challenge by combining external messaging channels with enterprise platforms to deliver what Dima Gutzeit, founder and CEO at LeapXpert, describes as “communication intelligence.” While Maxen is similar to Microsoft Copilot—which works only within the Microsoft product suite for now—it’s differentiated in its ability to integrate with multiple communications platforms, including WhatsApp, iMessage, and Microsoft Teams. Gutzeit explains that Maxen is an extension of the LeapXpert Communications Platform (which unifies and governs communication channels) and uses AI to provide relationship managers with real-time insights into client interactions. While that’s commendable, he notes that we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of how AI will transform business communication. “2025 will see the rise of AI assistants tailored for enterprise needs, focusing on unifying communication data and driving actionable insights. Compliance and security AI will evolve further, flagging suspicious activity in real time and reinforcing trust in digital interactions,” Gutzeit says. AI’s role in business communication isn’t just about boosting efficiency. It’s also helping enterprises navigate the growing complexity of data governance and regulatory compliance. For Gutzeit, the future of AI in communication will combine privacy-first AI, compliance, and actionable insights, enabling businesses to thrive in a digitally interconnected world. AI-POWERED CYBERSECURITY OPERATIONS AI operates on both the offensive and defensive sides of the cybersecurity equation. One classic example is how cybercriminals used AI-generated deepfake technology to impersonate a company executive in Hong Kong, tricking him into transferring several millions of U.S. dollars. But in response to such threats, companies are deploying AI-driven anomaly detection tools like Darktrace and Vectra AI that monitor network traffic to detect and respond to irregular patterns. Alex Yevtushenko, CEO at Salvador Technologies, highlights the dual nature of AI in this space: “On the one hand, AI enables expansive behavioral analysis and anomaly detection, improving efficiency and speeding up threat detection. On the other, cybercriminals are leveraging AI to launch more sophisticated attacks.” A growing and worrisome trend is the use of AI for polymorphic malware—a type of malware that shapeshifts its codes, making it difficult to detect. Attackers are also deploying AI for large-scale phishing campaigns, voice cloning, and social engineering attacks. “National and other critical infrastructures, often reliant on legacy systems, are particularly vulnerable,” Yevtushenko warns. AI’s ability to automate malicious code generation and exploit vulnerabilities amplifies these risks. Yevtushenko emphasizes the importance of resilience strategies to combat these threats, noting that organizations, especially critical infrastructure operators and industrial enterprises, must invest in robust recovery systems that enable rapid restoration of operations. Salvador Technologies, for example, offers a platform that ensures operational continuity and facilitates rapid recovery, bypassing traditional protocols to minimize downtime. Speaking about major AI trends to expect in the coming year, Yevtushenko says that 2024 has illustrated that “AI, although not a technology that just emerged, is a hugely useful tool that can become a ‘game changer’ in many fields.” He says that in 2025 “we will see more and more AI-based systems and tools in everyday cybersecurity-based operations, empowering business decision-makers to make the right kind of decisions with the ultimate goal to increase overall security.” WHAT LIES AHEAD? The potential for AI extends far beyond the use cases dominating today’s headlines. As Friedland notes, “AI’s future lies in multi-domain coordination, edge computing, and autonomous systems.” These advancements are already reshaping industries like manufacturing, agriculture, and finance. In manufacturing, for example, AI-powered robotics is enhancing productivity and reducing waste by optimizing workflows. Take Machina Labs, which uses the latest advances in robotics and AI to build the next generation of factories for the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, in the agricultural field, precision AI tools are helping farmers monitor crop health, predict yields, and conserve resources. A great example is CropX, which uses AI-powered algorithms to aggregate data from the soil and sky, then transform it into useful insights that help farmers monitor the health of their fields and crops. In finance, AI is improving fraud detection, enabling smarter investment strategies, and automating routine tasks, with companies like CertifID, Hawk AI, Riskified, and others using AI to detect and mitigate fraud at scale. As we move further into the decade, the consensus by many experts is that AI will increasingly take over routine tasks, freeing human experts to focus on complex challenges that require nuanced decision-making. Emerging technologies like quantum computing and hardware acceleration are also expected to supercharge AI’s capabilities, enabling more powerful models and faster decision-making processes. “AI will become more useful for decision-making in the C-suite,” says Belhoul, who also predicts that “we may see the first AI board member of a Fortune 500 company next year.”

Over the past two years, generative AI has dominated tech conversations and media headlines. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Midjourney, and Sora captured imaginations with their ability to create text, images, and videos, sparking both excitement and ethical debates. However, artificial intelligence goes far beyond generative AI—which is just a subset of AI—and its associated models. AI’s real promise lies in its ability to address complex challenges across diverse industries, from military technology to cybersecurity, medicine, and even genome sequencing. As we move into 2025 and beyond, the question isn’t whether AI use cases will expand—it’s how big and transformative they’ll get. MILITARY TACTICS AND INTELLIGENCE Few sectors stand to gain more from AI advancements than defense. “We are witnessing a surge in applications like autonomous drone swarms, electronic spectrum awareness, and real-time battlefield space management, where AI, edge computing, and sensor technologies are integrated to enable faster responses and enhanced precision,” says Meir Friedland, CEO at RF spectrum intelligence company Sensorz. Friedland notes that recent conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and across the Middle East, have highlighted critical vulnerabilities in military operations, from tactical to strategic levels—a factor he says will drive the adoption of AI use cases in the military. While Axios said in April that AI hit trust hurdles with the U.S. military, Friedland notes that with the rise of global tensions and defense budgets at an all-time high, “we can expect significant investment in AI to maintain a combat edge.” For Friedland, the defense sector’s growing embrace of innovation from startups like Palantir and Anduril reflects how AI is going to increasingly change things across the global defense sector. CRACKING THE CODE OF LIFE The healthcare sector is witnessing a sharp rise in AI-driven innovation, especially in precision medicine and genome sequencing, transforming how diseases are understood and treated. For many years, scientists and medical professionals have been trying to understand human DNA in an attempt to crack the code that powers life as we know it. Now, with new AI models like GROVER, they have a real chance at getting closer to that goal, Science Daily reports. “AI is transforming genome sequencing, enabling faster and more accurate analyses of genetic data,” Khalfan Belhoul, CEO at the Dubai Future Foundation, tells Fast Company. “Already, the largest genome banks in the U.K. and the UAE each have over half a million samples, but soon, one genome bank will surpass this with a million samples.” But what does this mean? “It means we are entering an era where healthcare can truly become personalized, where we can anticipate and prevent certain diseases before they even develop,” Belhoul says. Genome banks, powered by AI, are facilitating the storage and retrieval of vast amounts of genetic data, which can be analyzed to identify patterns and predispositions to certain diseases. Beyond diagnostics, AI is playing a pivotal role in drug development, accelerating the discovery of therapies for complex diseases. By analyzing genetic mutations and environmental factors, AI enables researchers to design treatments tailored to individual patients. “These tools are not only improving outcomes but also reducing costs and timelines associated with traditional medical research,” says Belhoul. BUSINESS COMMUNICATION INTELLIGENCE Today, businesses swim in a vast ocean of applications—spanning email, messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage, and collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams—that eventually make communication fragmented and often get important details lost in silos. But AI agents like LeapXpert’s patented Maxen are solving this challenge by combining external messaging channels with enterprise platforms to deliver what Dima Gutzeit, founder and CEO at LeapXpert, describes as “communication intelligence.” While Maxen is similar to Microsoft Copilot—which works only within the Microsoft product suite for now—it’s differentiated in its ability to integrate with multiple communications platforms, including WhatsApp, iMessage, and Microsoft Teams. Gutzeit explains that Maxen is an extension of the LeapXpert Communications Platform (which unifies and governs communication channels) and uses AI to provide relationship managers with real-time insights into client interactions. While that’s commendable, he notes that we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of how AI will transform business communication. “2025 will see the rise of AI assistants tailored for enterprise needs, focusing on unifying communication data and driving actionable insights. Compliance and security AI will evolve further, flagging suspicious activity in real time and reinforcing trust in digital interactions,” Gutzeit says. AI’s role in business communication isn’t just about boosting efficiency. It’s also helping enterprises navigate the growing complexity of data governance and regulatory compliance. For Gutzeit, the future of AI in communication will combine privacy-first AI, compliance, and actionable insights, enabling businesses to thrive in a digitally interconnected world. AI-POWERED CYBERSECURITY OPERATIONS AI operates on both the offensive and defensive sides of the cybersecurity equation. One classic example is how cybercriminals used AI-generated deepfake technology to impersonate a company executive in Hong Kong, tricking him into transferring several millions of U.S. dollars. But in response to such threats, companies are deploying AI-driven anomaly detection tools like Darktrace and Vectra AI that monitor network traffic to detect and respond to irregular patterns. Alex Yevtushenko, CEO at Salvador Technologies, highlights the dual nature of AI in this space: “On the one hand, AI enables expansive behavioral analysis and anomaly detection, improving efficiency and speeding up threat detection. On the other, cybercriminals are leveraging AI to launch more sophisticated attacks.” A growing and worrisome trend is the use of AI for polymorphic malware—a type of malware that shapeshifts its codes, making it difficult to detect. Attackers are also deploying AI for large-scale phishing campaigns, voice cloning, and social engineering attacks. “National and other critical infrastructures, often reliant on legacy systems, are particularly vulnerable,” Yevtushenko warns. AI’s ability to automate malicious code generation and exploit vulnerabilities amplifies these risks. Yevtushenko emphasizes the importance of resilience strategies to combat these threats, noting that organizations, especially critical infrastructure operators and industrial enterprises, must invest in robust recovery systems that enable rapid restoration of operations. Salvador Technologies, for example, offers a platform that ensures operational continuity and facilitates rapid recovery, bypassing traditional protocols to minimize downtime. Speaking about major AI trends to expect in the coming year, Yevtushenko says that 2024 has illustrated that “AI, although not a technology that just emerged, is a hugely useful tool that can become a ‘game changer’ in many fields.” He says that in 2025 “we will see more and more AI-based systems and tools in everyday cybersecurity-based operations, empowering business decision-makers to make the right kind of decisions with the ultimate goal to increase overall security.” WHAT LIES AHEAD? The potential for AI extends far beyond the use cases dominating today’s headlines. As Friedland notes, “AI’s future lies in multi-domain coordination, edge computing, and autonomous systems.” These advancements are already reshaping industries like manufacturing, agriculture, and finance. In manufacturing, for example, AI-powered robotics is enhancing productivity and reducing waste by optimizing workflows. Take Machina Labs, which uses the latest advances in robotics and AI to build the next generation of factories for the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile, in the agricultural field, precision AI tools are helping farmers monitor crop health, predict yields, and conserve resources. A great example is CropX, which uses AI-powered algorithms to aggregate data from the soil and sky, then transform it into useful insights that help farmers monitor the health of their fields and crops. In finance, AI is improving fraud detection, enabling smarter investment strategies, and automating routine tasks, with companies like CertifID, Hawk AI, Riskified, and others using AI to detect and mitigate fraud at scale. As we move further into the decade, the consensus by many experts is that AI will increasingly take over routine tasks, freeing human experts to focus on complex challenges that require nuanced decision-making. Emerging technologies like quantum computing and hardware acceleration are also expected to supercharge AI’s capabilities, enabling more powerful models and faster decision-making processes. “AI will become more useful for decision-making in the C-suite,” says Belhoul, who also predicts that “we may see the first AI board member of a Fortune 500 company next year.”

Agriculture
Business
Health

What Bird Flu Means for Milk

On Wednesday, California became the first state to issue a declaration of emergency regarding the avian flu (H5N1). That same day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first severe case of the flu in a human on US soil and outbreaks in cow herds were detected in Southern California. Still, the […]

On Wednesday, California became the first state to issue a declaration of emergency regarding the avian flu (H5N1). That same day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first severe case of the flu in a human on US soil and outbreaks in cow herds were detected in Southern California. Still, the threat to humans is low according to the CDC. The agency has traced most human infections back to those handling livestock, and there’s been no reported transmission between people. “I have dairies that are never coming back from this.” But for cows and the dairy they produce, it’s a different story. This year was the first time the flu was detected in cows in the US, and it has ripped through many Western states’ dairy farms with startling speed. Since March, the virus has been found in cow herds of 16 states. For the last few months, infected herds have largely been concentrated in California—the state that makes up about 20 percent of the nation’s dairy industry. Last week, Texas, another one of the nation’s top dairy producing states, saw the reappearance of bird flu after two months without a detected outbreak. In the industry hit hardest by bird flu, the poultry industry, the virus’ spread has resulted in the culling of entire flocks which has lead to higher egg prices on supermarket shelves. Will milk and butter prices soon go the same route? And how worried should you be about consuming dairy? How exactly does bird flu affect dairy cows? Some farmers are first identifying outbreaks in their herds through the color and density of the milk, in what they are coining “golden mastitis,” according to Milkweed, a dairy news publication. As early studies by University of Copenhagen researchers found, the virus latches onto dairy cows mammary glands, creating complications for the dairy industry beyond just the cow fatalities. The virus is proving deadly to cows. According to Colorado State University Professor Jason Lombard, an infectious disease specialist for cattle, the case fatality rates based on a limited set of herds was zero to 15 percent. But California saw an even higher rate of up to 20 percent during a late summer heatwave in the states Central Valley. It was a warning for how the rising number of heatwaves and temps across the country could result in deadlier herd outbreaks in upcoming summers.  For some of the cows that survived, there was a dip in their dairy production of around 25 percent according to multiple experts I spoke with. As a farmer told Bloomberg News, some of the cows aren’t returning to full production levels, an indication of longer lasting effects of the virus. It’s a finding experts are seeing in other parts of the US, too. According to Lombard, this may be due to the severity of the virus in the cow. According to reporting in Milkweed, there may also be “long-tail” bird flu impacts on a cow’s dairy production, health, and reproduction. Additional research is likely needed to understand the extent of these potential longterm effects of the virus and whether they could spell trouble ahead for recovering farms.   A spokesperson with the California Department of Food and Agriculture told Mother Jones, “it’s too soon to know how production has been impacted.” How is this impacting farms and farm workers? As of today, more than half of the people who’ve contracted H5N1 are dairy farmworkers, according to the CDC. This population is particularly vulnerable because they are often the ones handling milking or milking equipment which can lead to spreading the virus. The CDC is recommending employers take steps to reduce their workers’ exposure to the virus by creating health and safety plans. The CDC is working with organizations like the National Center for Farm Worker Health to expand testing, PPE availability, and training. According to Bethany Alcauter, a director at the organization, ensuring dairy farmworkers have access to testing is a tricky situation. The 100,000-some workforce faces barriers to accessing health care and testing, such as an inability to take paid-time off to get themselves tested if they are sick. And the system depends on the producer to decide to bring in the health department to oversee potential outbreaks within herds and staff, which doesn’t always happen because there’s no government mandate. “It’s all recommendations and kindness—that’s what we’re running on. It’s not regulation and enforcement.” “It’s all recommendations and kindness—that’s what we’re running on,” Alcauter says. “It’s not regulation and enforcement.” She believes the testing infrastructure could be strengthened by “recognizing that farm workers can be public-health first responders if they have the knowledge and the access to the right contacts, in the right system.” Outside of navigating farmworker health, farmers face economic impacts when the virus spreads through their herds. “What you’re losing at the end of the day is revenue for your farm when it rolls through,” says Will Loux, vice president of economic affairs for the National Milk Producers Federation. “Depending on the financial situation of an individual farm it can certainly be devastating.”  There are a handful of variables and factors that shape the financial losses of a dairy hit with an outbreak. Luckily, agriculture economist Charles Nicholson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and some colleagues created a calculator to estimate this financial impact of a bird flu outbreak. Based on Nicholson’s estimates for California, a typical farm of 1500 cattle will lose $120,000 annually. For context, this is about $10,000 more than the median household income of a dairy farmer. Based on those estimates, that would mean California’s farmers have collectively lost about $80 million at most due to avian flu so far. The US Department of Agriculture is providing support for farmers who are impacted by H5N1 outbreaks. In reviewing a few herd datasets in Michigan, Phillip Durst, a dairy and cattle expert, noted that about half a year after an outbreak, herds were producing around 10 percent less than before. Not only do farmers face massive short term losses, they also struggle to return to full capacity again. And, there are high costs associated with putting resources into taking care of sick animals too.  Even strong diaries that had “tip top” biosecurity measures, or comprehensive environmental protection measures in place, are shutting down, according to Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western Untied Dairies, a trade organization overseeing farms across California. “I have dairies that are never coming back from this,” Raudabaugh says. “This was just so cataclysmic for them. They’re not going to be able to get over that loss in production hump.” There is some hope around the corner. A vaccine for cows, which the USDA claims is in the works, could help stop the spread and protect remaining uninfected herds. “Until we have a vaccine that we can inoculate them with at an early age, we have no choices except to hope that herd immunity sets in soon,” Raudabaugh says. What’s the effect on milk? In June, the US dropped 1.5 percent in production, around 278 million pounds of milk, compared to 2023. It was one of the early potential indicators of the industry’s vulnerability to this virus. However, since then, the nation’s production rebounded to above 2023 numbers. It’s largely why consumers are not seeing the same impact on the price and availability of dairy products like they are with eggs.  “When one state gets H5N1 there are a lot of other states that tend to pick up the slack. So in general, when you look at the national numbers, you really have to squint to kind of find where H5N1 is in the milk production”,” says Loux. California produces around a fifth of the nation’s dairy, and since August over half of the state’s herds had an outbreak. In October, California saw a near four percent drop in milk production compared to 2023, equating to about 127 million pounds of milk. On Thursday, the USDA released November’s data on milk production showing California with the largest decrease this year of 301 million fewer gallons of milk compared to 2023. That is more than double the decrease of last month. Still, the nation only saw a near 1 percent decrease since 2023. How the next administration handles this virus may spell a different story for the dairy industry and the country. With Trump’s history of downplaying infectious diseases and promoting unfounded cures, and public health cabinet nominations who decry vaccine effectiveness, a human-to-human outbreak could lead to another pandemic. Likely to take over the USDA is Brooke Rollins, who, according to Politico, had less experience in agriculture than others on Trump’s shortlist (though she does have a degree in agriculture development). It’s currently unclear what her plans are for handling this virus and supporting farmers and the industry at large. Rollins did not respond to my request for an interview. Should I be worried about getting sick from drinking milk? Drinking pasteurized milk is safe. For more than 100 years, pasteurization has kept the public safe by killing harmful bacteria and viruses. The CDC is warning against raw milk consumption, on the other hand, due to it potentially having high-levels of bird flu. While there’s yet to be a human case of bird flu traced to raw milk consumption, there is fear that the unpasteurized product could lead to illness. And raw milk loaded with the virus has been linked to deaths in other mammals, like cats. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the likely soon-to-be director of Health and Human Services under Trump, has a history of promoting raw milk. Earlier this month, Kennedy’s favorite raw milk brand was recalled by California after testing positive for bird flu. Kennedy’s rise to public health power comes at time when raw milk is rising in popularity on TikTok. In response to the spread of bird flu in raw milk, the USDA announced a national strategy requiring milk samples nationwide be tested by the agency. Since officially beginning testing on Monday, 16 new bird flu outbreaks in cow herds have been identified in two states. For now, as the nation continues to work on controlling the spread of bird flu, consider tossing your raw milk out before it does more than just spoil.

Agriculture
Animals
Food

Blob-headed fish and amphibious mouse among 27 new species found in ‘thrilling’ Peru expedition

Scientists surprised to find so many animals unknown to science in Alto Mayo, a well-populated regionResearchers in the Alto Mayo region of north-west Peru have discovered 27 species that are new to science, including a rare amphibious mouse, a tree-climbing salamander and an unusual “blob-headed fish”. The 38-day survey recorded more than 2,000 species of wildlife and plants.The findings are particularly surprising given the region’s high human population density, with significant pressures including deforestation and agriculture. Continue reading...

Researchers in the Alto Mayo region of north-west Peru have discovered 27 species that are new to science, including a rare amphibious mouse, a tree-climbing salamander and an unusual “blob-headed fish”. The 38-day survey recorded more than 2,000 species of wildlife and plants.The findings are particularly surprising given the region’s high human population density, with significant pressures including deforestation and agriculture.The expedition was “thrilling to be part of”, said Dr Trond Larsen, senior director of biodiversity and ecosystem science at Conservation International’s Moore Centre for Science, who led the survey. “The Alto Mayo landscape supports 280,000 people in cities, towns and communities. With a long history of land-use change and environmental degradation, I was very surprised to find such high overall species richness, including so many new, rare and threatened species, many of which may be found nowhere else.”Researchers have discovered a new species of amphibious mouse, which belongs to a group of semi-aquatic rodents considered to be among the rarest in the world. Photograph: Ronald DiazThe “new” species include four mammals: a spiny mouse, a short-tailed fruit bat, a dwarf squirrel and the semi-aquatic mouse. Discovering a new species of amphibious mouse was “shocking and exciting”, Larsen said. “It belongs to a group of carnivorous, semi-aquatic rodents, for which the majority of species are exceedingly rare and difficult to collect, giving them an almost mythical status among mammal experts … We only found this amphibious mouse in a single unique patch of swamp forest that’s threatened by encroaching agriculture, and it may not live anywhere else.”The dwarf squirrel is about 14cm long and fast-moving, making it extremely difficult to spot in the dense rainforest.Larsen was particularly satisfied to find a new arboreal salamander “with stubby little legs and mottled chestnut-brown colouration, climbing at chest height in a small patch of white sand forest”. But the most intriguing find was “the blob-headed fish, which looks similar to related catfish species but with a truly bizarre speckled blob-like extension on the end of its head”, Larsen said. “The function of this ‘blob’ remains a complete mystery. If I had to speculate, I might guess it could have something to do with sensory organs in the head, or it may assist with buoyancy control, provide fat reserves or aid in its foraging strategy.”A new species of salamander, which spends most of its time in low vegetation and shrubs, was among the discoveries. Photograph: Trond LarsenSeven other new types of fish were also documented, along with a new species of narrow-mouthed frog, 10 new butterflies and two new dung beetles. Another 48 species that were found may also be new to science, with analysis under way to confirm.The expedition also documented 49 “threatened” species from the IUCN’s red list, including two critically endangered monkeys (the Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey and San Martin titi monkey), two endangered birds (the speckle-chested piculet and long-whiskered owlet) and an endangered harlequin frog.The survey was conducted in June and July 2022, using camera traps, bioacoustics sensors and environmental DNA (eDNA) collected from rivers and other water sources. The team of 13 scientists included Peruvian scientists from Global Earth, as well as seven technical assistants with extensive traditional knowledge from Feriaam (the Indigenous Regional Federation of the Alto Mayo Awajún Communities). Of the 2,046 total species recorded, at least 34 appear to live only in the Alto Mayo landscape or the San Martin region it falls in.Members of the insect team survey a swamp forest using nets and various types of traps. Photograph: Trond LarsenWhile the species have never been described by science (the process of assigning a species and name), some were already known to Indigenous communities. “As Awajún people, we have a great deal of knowledge about our territory,” said Yulisa Tuwi, who assisted with the research on reptiles and amphibians. “We know the value of our plants, how they cure us, how they feed us and we know paths within the forest that have led us to meet different animals.“Although we don’t know scientific names, we’ve developed a classification of these species … I believe the discoveries are for the scientific world, not so much for us, as these species are known under other names or for their usefulness or behaviour in nature.”Researchers hope the survey will bolster conservation efforts, including plans to create a network of local protected areas.

Agriculture
Animals
Forests

Suggested Viewing

Kumu Niu

The island of O'ahu is covered with coconut palms, but for fear of liability the vast majority of these sacred trees have been stripped of coconuts. The grassroots movement "Niu Now" is on a mission to restore the "niu," or coconut, as a fundamental food crop in Hawai'i and spread the Indigenous wisdom of "aloha 'āina:" loving land and serving people.

Land Use
Indigenous
Food

Sustainable Living with Patrick Lang

A day in the life of Patrick Lang living a sustainable life in Malibu… filmed before his home and community were consumed by fire in the fall of 2018.

Sustainable
Land Use
Solutions

Chicken Soup for the Soil

Chicken Soup for the Soil follows the journey of North Carolina farmers Rachel Herrick and Suzanne Nelson Karreman as they work to rehabilitate farm soil ecosystems one pasture at a time. We learn that animals are not commodities and insects are not pests. They are partners in regenerating the soil. These are grassroots farms working with Nature to help Nature bounce back.

Land Use
Agriculture
Climate

Swallowtail - An Apprenticeship Story

Swallowtail: An Apprenticeship Story follows six young aspiring farmers as they navigate the rollercoaster season of 2019-2020 in North Central Florida. The film centers on the thoughts and experiences of these apprentices who leave home to live at Swallowtail Farm and how the COVID-19 pandemic turned an already challenging learning experience into an unprecedented one. Throughout their journey, they reflect on issues of food security, sustainability practices, and community.

Agriculture
Food
Youth

Voices of Transition

Voices of Transition is an enthusiastic documentary on farmer- and community-led responses to food insecurity in a scenario of climate change, peak oil, and economic crisis. Concrete examples from Cuba, France, and the United Kingdom tell of a future society where our monoculture deserts will be restored to living soil, where fields will be introduced into our cities, and where independence from oil will help us live a richer, more fulfilling life.

Agriculture
Food
Climate

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

Our team is always growing.
Become a partner, volunteer, sponsor, or intern today.
Let us know how you would like to get involved!

CONTACT US

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Subscribers receive a free day pass for streaming Cinema Verde.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.