Researchers predict that climate change will negatively impact the yield and nutritional quality of most staple food crops, including rice, corn, and soybeans, due to factors like extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and altered precipitation patterns, potentially leading to reduced food security globally.
As a result, many experts contend that alternative food sources – like insect farming and seaweed aquaculture – are part of the solution. Additionally, expanding production of climate resilient food crops will also have an important role to play in global food security.
According to a new international study led by researchers from University of Vienna in Austria, chickpeas – also known as garbanzo beans – are a drought-resistant legume plant with a high protein content that can help combat food insecurity amid climate change.
In the study, which was recently published in the journal Plant Biotechnology, the researchers investigated the natural variations of different chickpea genotypes and their resistance to drought stress and achieved promising results. The research team managed to grow many different chickpea varieties under drought stress in a field experiment outside of Vienna. The results demonstrate that chickpeas are a great alternative legume plant that can complement grain farming systems in urban areas.
The study highlights how the decline of plant genetic diversity poses a major threat to plant productivity and harvests. In fact, while there are approximately 7,000 edible crops, two-thirds of global food production is based on just nine crop species.
According to the research team, highly nutritious and drought-resistant legumes such as chickpeas are a “food of the future.”
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Chickpeas – sustainable and climate-friendly foods of the future
Photo, posted March 21, 2020, courtesy of Ajay Suresh via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio