by The frequency and severity of weather-related hazards is gradually increasing, threatening our food security. But the growing climate concerns of floods, droughts, delayed or early monsoon rains and above or below average annual rainfall do not seem to end. There is another layer on top of the competing interests of existing policy responses to address climate impacts – nutrient deficiency in food due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. More and more studies now indicate that a higher concentration of CO2, which helps plants grow bigger and faster, often producing too many carbohydrates, has a direct effect on the total nutritional content, especially protein, iron, zinc, calcium and other essential food nutrients. .
Health links
With no significant progress in cutting global emissions despite repeated pledges during international climate summits, the problem of nutrient deficits will only worsen in the future. This will hurt low-income countries like Nepal, which are already facing the consequences of micronutrient deficiencies. According to the Nepal National Microbial Status Survey 2016, about 21 percent of children under five and about 24 percent of non-pregnant women between the ages of 15 and 49 are already zinc deficient. About 20 percent of non-pregnant women also suffer from iron deficiency.
Apparently, these nutritional deficiencies cause health problems. For example, zinc and iron deficiencies are known to cause chronic health issues, usually associated with stunted growth in children, impaired physical and cognitive development, depressed immune function, increased vulnerability and severity of infection, anemia, adverse pregnancy outcomes and neurobehavioral. abnormalities. Zinc is also important for skin health. In addition, higher CO2 concentrations affect rice and wheat, the staples of a significant portion of the population. Vegetables have been shown in controlled experiments to have a similar effect; calcium in green beans dropped significantly, vitamin A levels in asparagus dropped by almost half, and broccoli stems were found to have less iron.
Until now, nutritional deficiency has been seen as a result of improper diet, poverty and poor access to food. This will change, however, as the food itself will have less nutritional value due to the impact of climate on the nutritional content of cereals, pulses and vegetables. Even when a person has access to a proper diet and adequate amounts of food, it can lead to a nutritional deficiency due to fewer nutrients in the food. A paper entitled “Micronutrient deficiency, hidden hunger in Nepal: Prevalence, causes, consequences and solutions”, published in 2015, shows that the root cause of zinc deficiency is the low content of vitamins and minerals in food.
The far-reaching implications of nutrient deficiencies are that as floods, droughts and heat waves lower agricultural productivity and as atmospheric CO2 levels decrease the concentration of essential micronutrients in food increases, micronutrient deficiencies become which already exists, causing more people to become malnourished. The economic loss in Nepal is already estimated to be around 2 to 3 percent of GDP due to existing vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Remedial options
There are several ways to respond to these emerging food nutrition issues. Some are quick and others take time to yield results. One of the most popular solutions is to add micronutrients directly into the seeds. However, this is only a quick fix and does not provide permanent change as the technique targets one or two micronutrients at a time, but higher CO2 will always affect the state of the other micronutrients. In addition, it will take away the freedom of farmers to produce seeds, and instead they will rely on imported seeds, which may be out of reach for small farmers. It also raises the question of what will happen to crop varieties adapted to the local environment.
Another way is to apply nutrient rich fertilizers or soil amendments to infuse the plants with specific minerals. An effective, low-cost way to improve growth by treating the seeds and using biofertilizers already exists in Nepal. However, adding a nutrient-rich fertilizer without combating soil erosion is unlikely to help. Numerous studies in Nepal since the 1970s have highlighted soil erosion as a major obstacle to improving agricultural production, but no effective measures have been taken to address it. Soil erosion tends to deplete both macronutrients and micronutrients. As a result, we must have started to see the results if the call to conserve soil is not answered.
Farming is being abandoned due to the continuous loss of farm productivity, mainly due to the erosion of soil nutrients. Institutionally, the responsibility for formulating soil conservation policies and recommending their implementation rests with the forestry sector, which currently has no responsibility for managing agricultural soil. If we address unchecked soil erosion on farmland before nutrient-rich fertilizers are applied, we may help address the nutrient content of food in the short and long term. To that end, we need to facilitate better soil management, including soil conservation, on a massive scale.
A third possible approach is selective plant breeding, which has also been suggested as an effective way to develop seeds that are less affected by higher CO2 levels. Nepal’s institutional set-up and pool of expertise in plant breeding is well placed for this purpose. They have developed flood- and drought-resistant varieties of rice, maize and millet to protect crops from droughts. A combination of soil conservation supported by plant breeding would be a better response to the impacts of higher CO2 concentrations.
Extending the scope of adaptation
In short, our food security is threatened by an avalanche of issues, from water shortages, floods, windstorms, landslides and plant diseases, and impacts on the nutritional content of food. Food security will no longer be a matter of access to food, as it is generally understood; it will be a question of availability of food with the required amount of nutrients. National nutrition policies and strategies highlight the issue of existing nutritional deficiencies and their health consequences, which increase as CO2 concentrations increase.
Many people are already nutritionally deficient, and the likelihood of future nutrient depletion due to rising CO2 concentrations raises serious concerns about our food security. This is an emerging issue that has not yet been part of our climate response. As we face multiple climate-related agricultural issues, it is time to start identifying and integrating actionable measures into our adaptation plans to address food nutrient content.
