Hot spuds,cold truth

a worker wearing a protective suit harvesting potato tubers at a greenhouse under yakeshi senfeng Potato Industry Company, where seed potatoes are farmed through the aeroponics method in yakeshi, Inner Mongolia, China. — reuters

IN a research facility in the northwest of Beijing, molecular biologist Li Jieping and his team harvest a cluster of seven unusually small potatoes, one as tiny as a quail’s egg, from a potted plant.

Grown under conditions that simulate predictions of higher temperatures at the end of the century, the potatoes provide an ominous sign of future food security.