Israeli scientists step up efforts to grow climate change-resistant crops

Limiting the rise of global temperatures up to 1.5°C was an aspirational goal in the 2015 Paris agreement. But of the many 'what if' scenarios anticipated ever since, the most crucial 'what if' scenario concerns global food security amid rising temperatures. Israeli scientists have attempted to answer this big question to address the concerns about global food security.

Scientists in Israel are creating a gene bank from the seeds of local wild crops, some of which have survived for thousands of years since the startof agriculture by human civilisationand that may help farmers deal with a harsher climate in the coming decades.

In a eucalyptus grove nestled between an industrial zone and a new railroad under construction, botanist Alon Singer collected seeds from a number of plants recently spotted, including a variety of water mint, that will be frozen and stored at the Israel Plant Gene Bank at the Volcani Institute, the national agricultural Research and Development centre.

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Singer is combing the country along with other scouts and foragers in search of varieties of wheat, barley and countless other wild crops so their genetic makeup can be saved and studied before they are lost to expanding deserts and urbanization as the climate warms.

“The plants here are very unique. They are the ancestors of many of the cultivated plants used today,” he said.

Such crops can withstand drought or pest outbreak

Resilient characteristics can be harnessed to genetically modify farmed crops so they better withstand drought or disease.

Tens of thousands of types of seeds are stored in the gene bank. It may be smaller than some collections elsewhere in the world but the gene pool here is unique, coming from an area that was part of the Fertile Crescent region known as the birthplace of crop cultivation.

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“This is where agriculture started about 10,000 years ago,” said Einav Mayzlish-Gati, director of the gene bank. “Species that were domesticated here are still in the wild adapting over the years to the changes in the environment.”

The World Bank warns that global agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Negative effects, it said, are already being felt with hotter temperatures, more frequent extreme weather events, and invasive crops and pests.

Global food import bills are forecasted to near $2 trillion this year, a United Nations report said on Friday.

Agriculture and global warming will be discussed by global leaders in Egypt on Saturday at COP27, the latest edition of the United Nations' annual climate change summit.