Feeding all of us on a planet that's heating up is getting more challenging.

Hotter temperatures can drive more droughts and floods that wipe out crops, slash the nutrients in food, spread plant-destroying pests - and make it harder to get what is harvested to market without it going bad.

The good news? There are plenty of things to be done about that - and the work is underway.

In dry parts of Pakistan, the government is helping farmers install drip irrigation systems that deliver tiny doses of water only where it's needed, keeping up harvests even as water grows scarcer. 

Researchers also are looking at which "crop swaps" could help us adapt to a hotter world where growing rice, wheat, maize and soy gets harder but adding African morama bean, for instance, could be a good bet.

Where we cultivate crops will need to change too as the planet heats. It's going to get a lot harder to produce maize and soybeans in the U.S. Midwest, for example, and cotton production now in the U.S. South might shift to California, researchers say.

But efforts to grow more food as the climate shifts and populations expand can't come at the expense of carbon-absorbing forests, researchers warn - even though investments by big financial institutions into beef and soy appear to be driving just that in the Amazon.

The good news? The coronavirus pandemic has helped some rich-country residents reconsider how much food they throw away, campaigners say. With food waste a major contributor to climate change, the shift is one they hope will stick long after the health crisis is over.

See you next week!

Laurie

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