If a global disaster suddenly led to a nuclear winter, millions of people could starve. But now scientists have understood what cultures we would need to develop to support a city if such a calamitic event occurred.
According to a new study, agricultural spinach, sugar beets, wheat and carrots in urban and almost urban areas could feed the population of a medium-sized city in a post-apocalyptic world.
Scientists rely on previous research to determine optimal cultures to plant after a global disaster – such as nuclear war, extreme pandemics or solar storms. Their goal was to find the most effective way to feed a person using the least land.
“(Research) has not been inspired by the current, you know, the geopolitical environment,” said the principal of the study, Matt Boyd, founder and research director of Adapt Research, an independent research organization. “But it turned out to be very relevant, obviously, to the current geopolitical environment,” said Boyd to Live Science.
Current events include an unpredictable international policy, an in progress war in the Middle East and Europe, armed artificial intelligence and the always accessible destruction of climate change. In January, the Doomsday clock, which indicates how close humanity is close to a fatal catastrophe of species, checked a second closer to midnight – The closest it has ever been of the disaster.
In the new study, published Wednesday May 7 PLOS One JournalResearchers have examined how the population of an average size city could survive agriculture in the event of global disaster. The study has examined two scenarios should disaster: what to develop in and around a city in normal climatic conditions, and what to develop in the case of nuclear winter.
The optimal harvest to develop in a temperate city in normal conditions has proven to be a slight legume: peas. “Peas is a food rich in protein. They develop well in urban agricultural environments,” said Boyd. “If you want to feed someone, pea growth minimizes the amount of land you need to feed this person.”
However, pea plants are not resistant to frost. In case of nuclear winter – which could be caused by the nuclear war, A Supervolcano eruption Or a huge strike of asteroids – sunlight would be blocked “due to all the soot and all that has been thrown into the stratosphere,” said Boyd. In turn, it would cause lower temperatures and make more difficult for photosyner plants.
In this scenario, a more cunning combination of spinach and sugar beet is a better choice, the researchers noted.
In relation: “ Nuclear winter ” of an American-Russian conflict would destroy 63% of the world’s population
Boyd and co-author of the study Nick Wilsonpublic health professor at the University of Otago, Wellington has reached these parties in part using the data of A meta-analysis of research in urban agriculture This analyzed the performance of different cultures in dozens of cities around the world.
The peas, for example, increased at the top in normal conditions because they require 3,143 square feet (292 square meters) of land to satisfy a person’s caloric and protein needs for a year, while a combination of cabbage and carrots required 8,364 square feet (777 square meters), said Boyd – almost three times more soil.
Researchers have chosen Palmerston North in New Zealand, but the results can apply to similar cities worldwide, researchers said. With a population of around 90,000 inhabitants, it is a medium-sized world city, said Boyd, in addition “it is inside the land, like many cities in the world, and it has a suburban housing reasonably with low density, not a kind of Manhattan style skyscraper, etc.
Scientists then used the Google imaging of Palmerston North to determine the total quantity of available green spaces that could be used to grow crops, such as front lawns, backyards and parks.
“Surprised, surprised. The city cannot feed all its people,” said Boyd. If food is only cultivated within the limits of the city, the available land can feed approximately 20% of the population with crops that maximize proteins and food energy per square foot under normal climatic conditions. This number decreases to around 16% during the nuclear winter.
To feed the rest of the population, people would need land immediately outside the city – about a third of the size of the city’s built urban area – to sow additional effective crops. In the case of Palmerston North, it is around 2,817 acres (1,140 hectares), plus 272 acres (110 hectares) of Canola to convert to biodiesel into fuel tractors and other agricultural machines.
In the country just outside the city, the study revealed that potatoes are ideal for a normal climate scenario, and a combination of 97% wheat and 3% carrots is the optimal ratio for a nuclear winter because they have higher tolerance for colder temperatures.
Even in cities, “there are a ton of agricultural land that can be used to cultivate food,” said Theresa Nogeire-McraeAn ecological landscape of the American Farmland Trust and the affiliation teachers of Oregon State University, which was not involved in the study.
“People have installed cities where they did it for a good reason,” Nogeire-Mcrae told Live Science. “It was the rich soil near the banks. It is a good commodity. Let’s not throw that.” She added that the study methods were solid and that the results were reasonable.
Boyd noted that there are a number of unknowns that would have an impact on the yield of cultures in the real world. The quality of the soil is a large variable, because a low quality soil would produce fewer crops. He also assumed a scenario where water systems still flowed-“but you can imagine global disaster scenarios where there are additional obstacles and problems,” he said. Nor does he expect people that people will not eat peas for an entire year, but planting the most effective crops minimizes the amount of land necessary to feed a population.
Boyd said that this study could be used as the first step for cities seeking to use resilient urban agriculture in land use policy.
“Decisions that may seem optimal in a goal, perhaps economically, may seem a little less optimal if you also include a goal such as resilience, security and well-being,” he said.