1) While some scientists argue intensive research is needed to develop new drought-resistant crop varieties, the author argues that many drought-tolerant plants already exist in nature that could be introduced to areas affected by climate change. 2) The author believes that instead of spending billions developing new crops through genetic modification, existing drought-tolerant plants from other regions, like the spineless prickly pear cactus, could be introduced to places like Africa through inexpensive research and seed distribution. 3) The author has started a program called "Seeds for Food" to distribute seeds of drought-tolerant fruits and plants to dryland areas, arguing this could improve conditions without long research and is not invasive as the plants

1. Drought-tolerant or climate resilient plants to combat desertification
by Prof. Dr. Willem VAN COTTHEM - University of Ghent (Belgium)
I have been reading a very interesting publication at IRINNEWS
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88225
entitled AFRICA: Finding the food crops of the future
If it ever occurs, climate change could make that classical staple foods can’t be grown anymore
in the climatic zones of today. People would need to grow other crops. In my own country
Belgium, which would be the food crops of the future? What kind of options for continued food
security will we have? Do we need scientists to do years of research work on climate models
linked to agriculture and horticulture to determine which will be the crop yields in the future? Or
can we use existing climate-resilient crops in a ‘new’ environment created by the impact of
climatic changes on the existing vegetation?
Some scientists believe that intensive research work is needed to produce these ‘new’ varieties
of food crops, e.g. drought-resistant ones. Models are already used and still perfected. Some
believe that experimenting with these models, or with genetic modification of existing food
crops, ‘will save the time that would have been spent on field trials and help speed up the
agricultural research cycle’ (see Jennifer OLSON in the article mentioned above). Therefore,
highly estimated institutions provide extremely important research grants to encourage such
‘innovative solutions’.
I fully agree with Jennifer OLSON that ‘bioscience can improve crop resilience to climate
change, or perhaps improve the shelf-life of a food product’, but I want to express my serious
doubts about the necessity to spend billions of dollars on developing ‘new’ varieties of climate-
resilient crops, when in nature one finds a considerable number of species and varieties of plant
species that can successfully be introduced in regions or countries affected by climate change,
e.g. drought-stricken areas.
It suffices to accept that under the new conditions these drought-resistant plants, having a high
nutritional value for men or livestock, can be shipped as seeds from elsewhere to become the
‘new’ staple food.
If we can’t grow maize (corn) anymore, but another, less water-consuming cereal, why should
we stay hungry? If our region would become not adapted to olives, oranges, almonds, papayas,
bananas etc., why would we hesitate to grow other already existing fruits from other climatic
zones?
It is my most sincere conviction that Africans can be perfectly happy with food crops now
growing in Asia or South-America and vice-versa. I also believe that we should pay more

2. attention (do some rather inexpensive research work) on opportunities to introduce Asian or
South American food crops in the African drylands or the other way around.
Do we need to fear invasive species? Let someone explain first to us what would be an
‘invasive’ food crop. Would it become a noxious weed? Would we have to destroy it or eat it?
I leave that discussion open for now, trusting in the fact that if the Brazilians in their ‘Nord-Este
Province’ have enormous plantations of the spineless prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica
var. inermis with edible fruits and green pads that can be eaten or used as fodder, etc.), my
good friends in the Sahelian countries or even in the Sahara desert would be bewildered if they
could get a good opportunity to set up such plantations in their drylands. Invasive species? No
way: because the spiny prickly pear grows already all over that part of the world. Too
expensive? No way: because it suffices to put a pad in the dry soil to see it budding.
As a scientist, I have no hard feelings against enormous grants given to research work. But
accepting that research work must go on, I can’t stop dreaming of extremely inexpensive
research work in the field itself to disperse ‘all good things’ that Mother Earth is offering us
today.
Every time I am reading about the fantastic qualities of one or another plant species or a variety,
I am dreaming about the possibility to use seeds or parts of that plant to improve the living
conditions of all the people who don’t have the chance to profit from this exquisite species. This
way, my action ‘Seeds for Food’ was born (see
<https://www.facebook.com/groups/seedsforfood/>). Whenever you have a chance to let a
melon grow in the drylands, go out there and look at a child’s eyes when it bites for the first time
in such a juicy fruit.
Why would we hesitate to send all the seeds of the melons we consume to climate zones where
they can grow? Why don’t we offer those rural people, or even the people in cities or towns in
the drylands, a chance to grow avocado trees (Persea americana), tomato trees (Cyphomandra
betacea), cherimoyas, spekbooms, pitayas or dragonfruits, … you name it !
Knowing that all these ‘goodies’ are already there, we do not have to wait for the results of years
of research work. We only have to take the decision to spread the ‘goodies’ around, of course
in a well-organized way, e.g. as seeds. That’s what ‘organizations’ are set up for.
Remember that once we imported potatoes, tomatoes, tulips and hundreds of exotic species in
Europe without fearing that they could become ‘invasive species’. Will we create this fear today
?
To produce climate-resilient food crops or to use existing ones, for me it is no question
anymore.