By Mei Mei Chu, Florence Lo and Xiaoyu Yin
YANQING, China (Reuters) – At a research facility northwest of Beijing, molecular biologist Li Jieping and his team harvest a cluster of seven unusually small potatoes, one as small as a quail egg, from a potted plant.
Grown in conditions that simulate predictions of higher temperatures by the end of the century, the potatoes are an ominous sign of future food security.
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At just 136 grams, the tubers weigh less than half that of a typical potato in China, where the most popular varieties are often twice the size of a baseball.
China is the world’s largest producer of potatoes, which are crucial to global food security because of their high yield compared to other staple crops.
But they are particularly vulnerable to heat, and climate change caused by fossil fuel emissions is pushing temperatures to dangerous new heights while worsening droughts and floods.
With the urgent need to protect the food supply, Li, a researcher at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Beijing, is leading a three-year study into the effects of higher temperatures on the vegetable. His team focuses on the two most common varieties in China.
“I worry about what will happen in the future,” Li said. “Farmers will harvest fewer potato tubers, it will affect food security.”
Li’s team grew their crop for three months in a walk-in room set at 3 degrees Celsius above the current average temperature in northern Hebei and Inner Mongolia, the higher altitude provinces where potatoes are typically grown in China.
Their research, published this month in the journal Climate Smart Agriculture, found that higher temperatures accelerated tuber growth by 10 days but reduced potato yields by more than half.
Under current climate policies, the world faces warming of as much as 3.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, according to a United Nations report released in October.
Farmers in China say they are already feeling the effects of extreme weather events.
In Inner Mongolia, dozens of workers, white bags in hand, rush to collect potatoes dug from the ground before the next downpour.
“The biggest challenge for the potatoes this year is the heavy rain,” says manager Wang Shiyi. “It has caused several diseases… and greatly slowed down the progress of the harvest.”
Meanwhile, seed potato producer Yakeshi Senfeng Potato Industry Company has invested in aeroponic systems where plants are grown in the air under controlled conditions.
Farmers are increasingly demanding potato varieties that are higher yielding and less susceptible to disease, especially late blight, which caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century, and thrive in warm and humid conditions.
“Some new and more aggressive species (Pyth Phytophthora) have begun to emerge, and they are more resistant to traditional prevention and control methods,” said general manager Li Xuemin, explaining the strategy of the Inner Mongolia-based company.
The research by CIP, headquartered in Lima, is part of a collaboration with the Chinese government to help farmers adapt to warmer, wetter conditions.
In the greenhouse outside Li’s laboratory, workers wipe pollen off white potato flowers to develop heat-tolerant varieties.
Li says Chinese farmers will have to make changes over the next decade, planting in spring instead of early summer, or moving to even higher altitudes to escape the heat.
“Farmers need to start preparing for climate change,” Li said. “If we don’t find a solution, they will make less money from lower yields and the price of potatoes could rise.”
(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu, Florence Lo and Xiaoyu Xin; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
