Why is global plant health a problem?
The importance of plant health in the face of the challenges of feeding a growing population sustainably and combating the climate emergency cannot be overstated.
Plant diseases pose a significant threat to food security, particularly in low-income countries. The impact of plant pathogens extends beyond economic damage, affecting biodiversity and exacerbating greenhouse gas emissions. Our Group Leaders share why urgent solutions are needed to address this global problem.
"Understanding plant health is tremendously important because the world faces an enormous challenge. We have to feed a growing world population, and we have to do that in a way that's truly sustainable in the face of the climate emergency."
"In the next 35 years, we've got to grow more food than we've grown in the last 10,000 years, and in areas like Africa, we've got to see a 260 percent increase in food production. Global agriculture produces around 26 percent of greenhouse gas emissions each year and that's unsustainable."
Prof. Nick Talbot FRS, Executive Director and Group Leader
"The challenge of food security will become more and more apparent and severe, especially for low-income countries around the globe. So it is more urgent than ever that we need an immediate solution for plant disease so that we can increase crop yield and feed more."
Prof. Wenbo Ma, Group Leader
"To give you an example, wheat. Twenty percent of all the world food calories come from wheat, and there are so many pathogens, and when we lose these crops our livelihood is threatened. I'm from Tunisia north Africa, where wheat provides 50 percent of the calories of the food that we eat over there, and so when we have a pathogen, when there's an outbreak it's a big problem. People actually are struggling to get their food at reasonable prices, and we have to import a lot of wheat from other countries."
Prof. Sophien Kamoun FRS, Group Leader
"Plant disease is a global problem because every time we devote land to agriculture to feed ourselves, we are taking land away from biodiversity, and it's clear we're up against the limits of the planet from the standpoint of coexistence with other species. To produce, for example, a ton of grain takes a thousand tons of water. So if you lose ten percent of that grain, you've actually lost a hundred tons of water."
Prof. Jonathan Jones FRS, Group Leader
"A plant pathogen, coffee leaf rust, wiped out the entire coffee production in Sri Lanka, which is why the Brits are tea-drinkers. More recently, we hear about many plant pathogens. Ash dieback is a famous example and in Brazil there's soybean rust. That's the pathogen I study and in Brazil alone this causes 2 billion US dollars in damage each year because farmers have to spray to combat this pathogen. This has impacts of course in a diverse habitat like Brazil."
Dr Peter van Esse, 2Blades Group Leader
Transcript summarised with assistance from ChatGPT on 7 March 2023
