{"id":42901,"date":"2017-11-30T23:10:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T23:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=42901"},"modified":"2017-11-30T23:10:51","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T23:10:51","slug":"thorny-tasty-un-agriculture-agency-looking-cactus-climate-resilient-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2017\/11\/thorny-tasty-un-agriculture-agency-looking-cactus-climate-resilient-food\/","title":{"rendered":"From thorny to tasty: UN agriculture agency looking at cactus as climate resilient food"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the reality of climate change becoming more real by the day, including its impact on food sources, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO<\/a>) is urging communities around the world not to take the prickly cactus for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change and the increasing risks of droughts are strong reasons to\u00a0upgrade the humble cactus<\/a>\u00a0to the status of an essential crop in many areas,\u201d said Hans Dreyer, the Director of Plant Production and Protection Division at FAO, noting the plant\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

According to the UN agency, cultivation of cactus pear is slowly catching on, in part, boosted by growing need for resilience in the face of drought, degraded soils and higher temperatures.<\/p>\n

This was evident during the recent intense drought in southern Madagascar, where the plant \u2013 once viewed as a worthless invasive species \u2013 provided a crucial supply of food, forage and water for local people and their animals.<\/p>\n

While most cacti are inedible, the\u00a0Opuntia<\/em>\u00a0species \u2013 also referred to as prickly pear \u2013 has much to offer, especially if treated like a crop rather than a weed run wild.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday the agriculturally relevant\u00a0Opuntia ficus-indica<\/em>\u00a0subspecies \u2013 whose spines have been bred out but return after stress events \u2013 is naturalized in 26 countries beyond its native range,\u201d says FAO, adding: \u201cIts hardy persistence makes it both a useful food of last resort and an integral part of sustainable agricultural and livestock systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historically, cactus\u2019 culinary qualities have been a prominent feature in Mexico as well as the Italian island of Sicily, renowned for its gourmet tradition.<\/p>\n

In Mexico alone, the yearly per capita consumption of\u00a0nopalitos<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 the tasty young pads, known as\u00a0cladodes<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 is 6.4 kilograms and the plant is grown on small farms (as primary or supplemental crop) and harvested in the wild on more than three million hectors.<\/p>\n

Cactus as source of water and to lower greenhouse gas emissions<\/em><\/h5>\n

Aside from providing food, cactus also stores water in its pads, providing up to 180 tonnes of water per hectare \u2013 enough to sustain five adult cows.<\/p>\n

This usefulness is all the more important during droughts, when livestock survival rate has been far higher on farms with cactus plantations.<\/p>\n

And with pressure on water sources only projected to rise in the future, cactus could become one of the important crops for the 21st century.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, there is evidence that yields in barley \u2013 a major cereal grain globally \u2013 rise when cactus is grown alongside it as a soil-improving alley crop, and there is research showing that use of cactus in cattle diets reduces the ruminants\u2019 methanogenesis (production of methane in the guts of animals, especially cattle and other ruminants), thus contributing to lower greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

Via UN News Centre<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the reality of climate change becoming more real by the day, including its impact on food sources, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is urging communities around the world not to take the prickly cactus for granted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":42907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,4],"tags":[114,144],"class_list":["post-42901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","category-news","tag-agriculture","tag-climate-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}