Avocados grown in Africa, cashew nuts harvested in China and Australia, coffee from New Zealand... By 2050, global warming will reshuffle the deck for the main producers of these three key ingredients of our diet. For the first time, scientists have not only studied the effects of rising temperatures to identify new harvesting areas, they have also analyzed soil structure. Which can change everything!
Rice, wine, coffee... Scientists have already identifiedthe everyday foods threatened by global warming. What is less known are the new areas of production that could potentially host the cultivation of these foods. Never before have researchers looked at this question in relation to cashews and avocados. In a large study published in the journal PlosOne, scientists at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences reveal that they not only used predictive factors of precipitation, temperature and humidity to identify the locations in the world where these two types of food will be grown in 2050, but they also combined soil characteristics, pH and slope.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the world production of cashew nuts is currently provided by Vietnam, India, Ivory Coast and Benin. In the worst case scenario, the cultivation of this seed that we like to eat as a snack could completely disappear from Benin because of overly hot temperatures. On the other hand, the rise of temperatures in other regions of the globe, namely the United States, South America, East Africa around Lake Victoria, northern India, Vietnam, China and Australia, will allow these countries to think about getting into the business. In the best case scenario, the proportion of cultivation areas could increase by 17% by 2050. In fact, cashew could prove to be one of the foods that will best adapt to global warming.
Africa, future homeland of the avocado?
Avocado producers will not be able to say the same, however, as cultivation of this green fruit will be seriously challenged by either too much rain or too much drought. Today, 58% of the world production takes place in Mexico, Indonesia, Peru and the Dominican Republic. The surfaces suitable for avocado cultivation in this last location could decrease up to 85% by 2050. On the other hand, other regions will receive more rainfall, which could encourage them to start producing avocados. This could be the case of many African countries such as Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya. Meanwhile, Peru is almost sure to see cultivation of this type of food disappear from its soil, while its close South American neighbors such as Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina could benefit from better growing conditions.
Coffee from New Zealand
Coffee is the last of the three foods studied by the scientists. And its growth requirements will adapt least well to global warming. While Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam and Indonesia currently harvest 64% of the world's production, researchers have indicated that coffee cultivation could decline by more than 50% by 2050. These major producing areas will no longer host soil that is suitable for growing coffee. In Vietnam in particular, temperatures will become much too hot for the trees to flourish and bear fruit. Unlike cashews and avocados, very few regions will have ideal climatic conditions for growing coffee. In the near future, however, we could be sipping some java from the United States, China, India and even New Zealand.
