Everyone loves a TED Talk, here’s one of our favorites:
Food security may be the biggest, most tangible effect of climate change says Amanda Little, Author of The Fate of Food: What We’ll Eat in a Bigger, Hotter, and Smarter World in her TED Talk.
People got a taste of this growing problem during the height of the global pandemic when supply chains broke down. Farmers couldn’t distribute their food leaving crops rotting in fields. At the same time, as consumer demand grew, grocery stores and food banks experienced food shortages.
But COVID-19 is just a precursor to what climate change will bring as drought, fire, and floods disrupt food supply chains. According to Little, “Our food systems have not been designed to adapt to major disruptions or preempt them. Addressing this challenge is going to define our progress in the coming century.”
The International Panel on Climate Change has predicted that by mid-century the world may reach a threshold of global warming beyond which current agricultural practices can no longer support large human civilizations. The USDA scientist Jerry Hatfield says: the single biggest threat of climate change is the collapse of food systems.
Fortunately, farmers, entrepreneurs and academics are radically rethinking national and global food systems. They are marrying principles of old-world agroecology and state-of-the-art technologies to create a third way to food production. Little travelled to 15 countries and 18 states, investigated old world farming practices and new ideas like robotics, CRISPR, plant-based meats, and vertical farms.
The challenge is to borrow from ancient, ecological practices, and from advanced science, to forge this third way. This will improve and scale harvests, while restoring rather than degrading the planet.
Little says, “The upshot is this: Human innovation that marries old and new approaches to food production can...usher in this third way and redefine sustainable food on a grand scale.”