The Netherlands Teaches the Planet How to Grow Food in Changing Climates
There was a time when Latin America’s temperate climate seemed like the perfect environment to champion the world’s demand for food production. South America with its expansive land, warm environment that, on the whole, suffered less from rapid extremes and snowfall than say, Europe, was ideal for raising beef and growing soy, wheat rice, corn and of course, coffee.
But as we know now, climate expectations aren’t always a predictable gauge for success. Micro climates change and so does technology.
Take Brazil for example, a country known for its coffee, grain and beef production. In the recent decade, Brazil’s, grain production has been hit hard by droughts and sustained temperature increases. Recent studies that suggest that many those crops thought of as warm-weather products are incapable of being grown in temperatures that exceed 40 C/ 104 F. Declining revenues from crops like soy have highlighted the need for innovation when it comes to global warming, a challenge that may be harder to meet in warm, temperate zones that swelter during the summertime.
That’s where the Netherlands come in.
CIAT