4 stories
A Cornell study measured the Haudenosaunee Three Sisters against monocultures. The polyculture produced more energy and more protein per hectare than any single crop or pairing tested.
In the Andes above Pisac, farmers run a 12,000-hectare park as a living seed bank. In 2004 the world's biggest potato genebank returned hundreds of varieties to the people whose ancestors bred them.
Fonio may be Africa's oldest cultivated cereal. West African farmers grow around 700,000 tonnes a year on soil that will carry little else — and the biggest obstacle is not the growing, it is the machinery.
Enset is called the tree against hunger. Fifteen plants feed one person for a year, farmers plant more of it after droughts, and researchers think it could feed 100 million more people. It grows almost nowhere else.
New stories, straight to your inbox. Unsubscribe anytime.