Alternative and Future Crops
11th September 2021
by Dr. Martin Chadwick
What kind of crops do we eat?
- There are around 300 000 known plant species
- Around 4% (12 000) are edible
- 75% of our food comes from just 12 crops
- The remaining 75% is from no more than 200 species.
- Over half our calories come from just 3 crops (rice wheat and maize)
Over thousands of years, humans have bred these crops to provide sustenance.
But this has led to a monotony in the crops we eat
Genetic Modification provides a way to develop a greater variety of edible crops in a shorter period of time.
But this raised questions about who will control the modifications being made, Farmers, researchers or the "money men".