STORY: Driven by fear of climate change, Chinese molecular biologist Li Jieping and his team are racing to develop a ‘super-potato’ – one that is resistant to hotter temperatures.
Their three-month study in Beijing looked at the effect of higher temperatures on crop yields.
Typical tubers grown in northern Hebei and Inner Mongolia are often twice the size of a baseball.
But the potatoes they ended up with in the study, some no bigger than a quail’s egg, were an ominous sign for future food security.
“I feel it is worrying because of the temperature changes. I’m currently using settings with a temperature difference of an average of 3 degrees Celsius and this has had a significant impact on yield. That means higher temperatures will notably reduce the output of current potato varieties.”
Li’s study, under the Peru-based International Potato Center, was done in partnership with the Chinese government.
The country is the world’s biggest potato producer.
And the crop is crucial to global food security because of its high yield compared to other staple crops.
But it’s especially vulnerable to heat.
“This is why China’s leadership is paying attention. The reality is climate change is happening and they are aware that this could have a negative impact on agriculture. So they want to develop solutions and strategies before such impacts take hold.”
Farmers in China say they are already feeling the effects of extreme weather events.
In Inner Mongolia, dozens of workers clutching white sacks rush to gather potatoes dug up from the soil before the next downpour.
Manager Wang Shi Yi says they’re impacted by another event that has become more common due to climate change: flooding.
“The biggest challenge for potatoes this year has been the heavy rainfall, which has caused several issues. For example, dehydration, early ageing, and due to the excessive rainfall, various diseases have appeared, such as late blight and other issues like tuber rot.”
Such problems have farmers increasingly turning to aeroponic systems, where plants are grown without soil…
But climate change also raises the risk of diseases such as blight, which thrives in warm and humid conditions.
One manager of an Inner-Mongolia based seed potato producer says a warming climate has led to more aggressive strains of blight emerging, making it more difficult to control.
Molecular biologist Li says Chinese farmers will need to make changes within the next decade.
Until a super-potato arrives, he says they should plant during spring instead of the start of summer, or move to higher altitudes to escape the heat.