Planting the Seeds of Resilience: A Blueprint for Thriving in a Warming World

by: Daniel White , Co-founder and CEO at Clean Crop Technologies, Inc.

July of this year was the hottest that NASA has on record. Most stories have focused on how increasingly frequent heat waves are dangerous for humans, but extreme heat is also one of the biggest threats to our food system.?

Take Arizona as a key example. Arizona isn’t just desert, it also happens to be the 2nd largest supplier of fresh vegetables in the US after California, supplying 5% of all vegetables nationally. Historically, Arizona’s warm climate has been an asset for this production. Growers in Arizona plant and harvest from August through May, filling grocery store shelves in those cold months further North and East.?

But as the climate warms, Arizona’s vegetable industry is facing production challenges from heat and drought. In Arizona, yields are estimated to drop by more than 12% per one degree celsius increase in global temperature, according to a study by ASU researchers. NOAA estimates that global temperatures are on track to rise by 1.5 degree celsius by 2050, meaning Arizona’s yields would drop by 18% by that time. At the same time, the US population is expected to grow by 30%, meaning less food available for more people–a recipe for disaster.?

And this crisis is playing out in similar ways across the globe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns us that crop yields worldwide could tumble by up to 2% per decade as the planet cranks up the heat, driving floods, droughts, and erratic weather events that drive down yields and increase waste.?

This can lead to reduced production of major crops like wheat, rice, and maize, which are essential for global food security.?

Warmer temperatures and wacky rainfall patterns are messing with growing seasons. Sure, in the Northern Hemisphere, we’ve gained two extra weeks of growing time since the early 20th century. Sounds like a bonus, right? For many crops, it’s a nightmare, driving more heat stress during planting. Similar to the way humans sweat, plants use water to keep cool (a process called transpiration). As they ‘sweat’ more due to the heat, they gulp down water, accelerating drought stress.

This challenge gets more acute when you anticipate population growth and changing diets into the mix: the World Bank estimates that we will need 70% more food to just maintain current food security levels by 2050.?

So what’s the game plan? Time to scale up age-old techniques and emerging tech that boost crop resilience. Many of these practices have been around for centuries; others, like my company Clean Crop’s Clean Current seed treatment, have emerged as part of the energy transition in agriculture.?

First, improve cultivation practices to manage soil and crop heat: The majority of farmland in the US is cultivated annually, and soil is left bare between plantings. This bare soil erodes more rapidly, but also absorbs more heat, creating a version of the heat island effect in crop fields. Cover-cropping, intercropping with shade crops, agrivoltaics, and other mechanisms can significantly reduce this soil heating effect, reducing heat stress and conserving soil moisture.?

Second, invest in more resilient plant genetics: Plant breeding for drought, heat, and other stress resistance can help, but breeding programs are expensive, take years to develop, and often require trade-offs with other desirable traits. Advances in CRISPR-Cas gene editing technology have already identified several promising pathways to boost crop resilience to drought, accelerating the breeding cycle to adapt crops and production zones to withstand heat stress more quickly.?

Third, scale technologies that can boost plant resilience: Traditionally, seed priming has involved the process of hydrating seeds under controlled conditions to promote initial germination, then immediately drying the seeds back until planting in the greenhouse or the field.? Seed priming is used to increase the speed and uniformity of germination under both ideal and stress conditions like heat stress or drought.? Current seed priming involves the use of water, osmotic solutions, and sometimes plant growth hormones.? Current ‘wet’ seed priming often takes several days and if the proper protocol is not followed, seed quality and seed shelf life can deteriorate. At Clean Crop, we generate ionized gases as a dry priming agent to boost resistance to drought. Over the past two years, Clean Crop has run a wide range of lab and field trials with seed companies and growers looking at the influence of our treatment on drought resistance for a wide range of crops, including lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower, and canola, showing that yields are higher on treated crops by up to 50%, depending on the severity of the drought and the crop’s needs. Our treatment leaves no residues, and does not require growers to change anything about how they plant today.

In a world where climate change is placing our food system in the hot seat, it's clear that we need to act to ensure our plants thrive amidst rising temperatures and shifting weather patterns. As we anticipate a future with both population growth and changing diets, the urgency to adopt proven and emerging technologies becomes undeniable. From innovative cultivation practices that mitigate heat stress to resilient plant genetics and groundbreaking technologies like Clean Crop’s seed priming, we must embrace these tools to secure global food security.?

*This article was originally published on MCJ's Substack.