Apr
5
How many kinds of food have gone extinct?
April 5, 2008 | | 1 Comment
by Rachael
Crops, irrigation, fertilisers, pesticides…etc and etc. Farmers do invest a lot before harvest. As consumers are pursuing better quality of agricultural products and prices of raw materials are rising, farmers have to seek ways to do the maximum gain for their living.
For this, farmers are looking for more efficient yields, therefore, many of them start to sow similar kind of seeds – diversity of food available hence diminishes. Food breeds in distinctive features or functions are not as available as in the past. “Yuen Long Brand Rice” is one of the examples. It has been the unique rice product of Hong Kong. When food tradings are becoming more mature, manufacturers found that cost of growing “Yuen Long Brand Rice” was higher than importing cheaper breeds from the mainland or Thailand, where vast volume of rice could be produced in higher efficiency. Gradually, suppliers are switching to sell more imported rice from Thailand and the mainland. And as mentioned in my previous post, hectares of forestland have been turned into fields because of tremendous growth in world’s population and manufacturing of biofuels, wild species of plants are becoming extinct. Land is also used for other purpose of town planning like house building. For the same example, “Yuen Long Brand Rice” then became no more available since the plateau had been transformed into housing estates.
I read before that plant breeders had used genetic diversity to keep agricultural production adequate to balance off the growing demand from expanding population. However, as maintenance of genetic diversity is not fully carried on, some kinds of food sources could not be recovered, food volume to feed the human species is lacking in supply.
Yet, it is too early to say that yields do not increase because of little improvement or regression in genetic diversity. Chinese Cabbage or Kale, which were only available in winters, are sold in markets across 365 days now. Genes in these two popular species have been improved to ensure supplies able to satisfy not only a quarter of the year.
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I wasn’t aware that there used to be a Yuen Long rice grown in Hong Kong. Do you know if there is any rice still grown here, even in small quantities?