{"id":66680,"date":"2023-07-03T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=66680"},"modified":"2023-06-30T12:42:44","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T16:42:44","slug":"shes-brought-a-climate-resilient-superfood-to-the-worlds-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/shes-brought-a-climate-resilient-superfood-to-the-worlds-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"She’s Brought a Climate-Resilient Superfood to the World’s Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Diane
Diane Ragone shows off breadfruit, a nutritious food source that can thrive in increasingly hot conditions. (Credit: Lucy Sherriff)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Editor’s Note: We’re keenly interested in women combatting climate change. Apply now for our Women In Science Incentive Prize<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Diane Ragone’s piercing blue eyes sparkle when she talks about breadfruit. The 69-year-old has devoted her entire working life to studying the strangely shaped, voluptuous produce that tastes more vegetable than it does fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starchy, carby and sweet if left on the branch long enough, Ragone will eat it every which way. “I will never get bored of it,” she says, over a mouthful of breadfruit “nachos” that she’s prepared at her house on Kauai, Hawaii<\/a>. “Never.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breadfruit grows throughout the Pacific, Caribbean, Central America and Africa. It is around the size of a melon, with a spiky or pebbled skin that can range in color from brown to green-yellow. The name derives from white voyagers, who when first servedroasted breadfruit declared it smelled like baked bread. A small serving of the fruit provides ample fiber, protein, magnesium, potassium \u2013 and many more vital minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world threatened by climate change and walloped by global pandemics and war<\/a>, breadfruit is increasingly seen as a stable crop that can help combat global hunger. Recent research shows that breadfruit is climate-resilient, meaning that it can still thrive in hotter conditions even as other crops \u2013 rice, corn and soybeans \u2013 struggle and decrease in yields.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\u201cBreadfruit is a neglected and underutilized species that happens to be relatively resilient in our climate change projections,\u201d said Daniel Horton, a climate change scientist at Northwestern University. Horton co-authored a 2022 study<\/a> about the potentials of breadfruit in food insecure regions. \u201cAs we implement strategies to adapt to climate change, breadfruit should be considered in food security adaptation strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cultures, there is a tradition to plant a breadfruit tree when a child is born. \u201cThis is to ensure the child will have food for the rest of their life,\u201d explains Nyree Zerega, a conservation scientist with the Negaunee Institute for Plant Conservation Science and Action at the Chicago Botanic Garden. \u201cBreadfruit trees can live for decades and provide a large amount of fruits each year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A small serving of breadfruit, which can be served in a variety of ways, provides ample fiber, protein, magnesium, potassium and vital minerals. (Credit: Lucy Sherriff)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Although there are now multiple organizations researching the value of breadfruit, and many breadfruit initiatives being rolled out across the Caribbean, this was certainly not the case when Ragone began her breadfruit journey in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ragone is the director emeritus of the Breadfruit Institute of the National Tropical Botanical Garden<\/a>, based in Hawaii, and for the past three and a half decades has been studying, analyzing, growing and preaching breadfruit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost single-handedly, Ragone has brought this superfood to the world’s attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI realized that this important tree in the Pacific Islands \u2013 the primary staple crop on many islands and a multipurpose tree with many uses to people and the environment \u2013 was at risk and the diversity of varieties needed to be studied and documented, and more importantly conserved,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt was important to bring it to the world\u2019s attention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has traveled the Pacific region collecting as many breadfruit varieties as possible and has feasted on breadfruit in many ways, including eating fruit that had been buried underground for years as part of a local ritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years, it was trial and error as to how to propagate the trees back at the institute. Initially, Ragone gathered the seeds, which wouldn\u2019t grow. But over time, she realized that it was in fact the roots that needed gathering \u2013 the seeds lose their ability to grow if they are stored, chilled or dried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back at the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Ragone and her team propagate the cuttings and grow them on the lush land that surrounds the institute\u2019s headquarters. They currently have a grove of 150 breadfruit varieties, and have begun shipping saplings to nonprofits and communities across the world to enable them to grow their own breadfruit resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such successful program began in 2008, when a benefit-sharing arrangement was put in place with the Samoan government to distribute the Ma’afala variety that an NTBG botanist had collected from Samoa in the 1970s and conserved in the institute\u2019s living collection. Now, the government receives half of all revenues generated by NTBG from selling the variety to horticultural companies. \u201cWe wanted to set a standard for benefit-sharing for plant genetic resources,\u201d Ragone says.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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Since then, the institute and numerous collaborators have shipped 150,000 saplings to 46 tropical countries \u2013 places where rates of hunger and poverty are highest. Farmers in countries like Costa Rica, Haiti and Nigeria are already growing some of the varieties developed by Ragone\u2019s team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The institute is also training small scale farmers in agroforestry, or moving away from monocultures and planting native produce crops, like the breadfruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a hard task, though, as farmers\u2019 profit margins are often so slim that it\u2019s near-impossible to take risks. A lot of Ragone and her team\u2019s work is around outreach and education \u2013 a slow, long-term process that is gradually persuading farmers to diversify their crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global population is expected to increase by 2 billion peopl<\/a>e in the next 30 years, according to the United Nations, which means food production will have to increase by more than 60%. The UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization has noted that<\/a> agroforestry is \u201cpart of the solution\u201d to addressing land management and food production issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breadfruit trees offer several advantages over other staples, according to Ragone. They\u2019re fast-growing, and require far less labor, fertilizer and pesticides than rice and wheat crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel this is just a start,\u201d says Ragone, who has 40 years of information about breadfruit in the form of field journals, plant logs, photographs and video interviews with Pacific islanders. She would like to see more trees of more varieties distributed, and a continued focus on documenting the biocultural knowledge of the Pacific and Caribbean islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But so far, the impact that breadfruit has had around the world is “an amazing accomplishment that took years of hard work by many people,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work has left Ragone feeling \u201cproud and happy and challenged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s an amazing accomplishment that took years of hard work by many people.\u201d ◼<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Diane Ragone has dedicated her career to spreading the word about breadfruit, which could help aid the global hunger crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":66681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[20278,21447,19479],"class_list":["post-66680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-climate-change","tag-food-security","tag-women-in-science"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat's Breadfruit? 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