As the planet warms, time is running out to develop new cultivars that can cope with the heat. Luckily, scientists at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Valle de Cauca may have stumbled upon a solution. By crossing a modern bean with one of its obscure Mexican relatives, they have, they announced, created a variety that can withstand the expected 3°C (5.4°F) rise in temperature over the next century.
Four hundred million people in the developing world rely on beans for food, according to Cgiar. But CIAT’s scientists warn that rising temperatures are likely to disrupt production in African countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and the DRC. Across the Atlantic, Nicaragua, Haiti, Brazil and Honduras are also likely to be affected.
Head of CIAT’s bean breeding programme, Steve Beebe was particularly spooked by the findings. So he ensconced himself in the gene bank, which contains 36,000 bean samples—the largest collection anywhere in the world—sifting through the vast collection for an obscure variety that might show signs of heat and drought resistance.
After testing over a thousand samples, he eventually found what he was looking for: the tepary bean, a hardy survivor cultivated since pre-Columbian times in an area that is now part of northern Mexico and the American southwest. Hoping to transfer the resistant traits from one type of bean to another, Beebe began to cross the tepary with more common varieties such as pinto, white, black and kidney beans.
The new bean might not only mitigate the effects of climate change where beans are already grown, but even allow production to expand into completely new parts of Central America and East Africa.
For such discoveries to happen, there needs to be agricultural biodiversity. Varieties like the tepary bean are the ancient wild relatives of today’s common crop varieties, and they contain a multitude of hidden traits, which could help tackle unforeseen future problems. Gene banks play a crucial role in protecting that biodiversity—so long as they are properly maintained.
Read full, original article: Scientists have engineered the food that will help save a starving, warming planet
