Feeding the future

Food for all: Underutilised crops can provide alternatives to a major staple such as rice and help to ensure food sustainability and nutrition security. — Bernama

AGRICULTURE sits at the nexus of three of the most multifaceted challenges – known as “the perfect storm” – we face today: population growth (estimated 40.7 million in Malaysia by 2050), depleting natural resources, and changing climates.

Our entire food system is in a precarious state, propped up by a narrow range of major crops – maize, wheat, rice and soybean – that are already stretched to their limits as food, feed and even biofuel. Not only do these challenges pose imminent threats to the productivity and yield of these crops, but they also affect their nutritional content.