Part 3 of Climate and Sustainable Food.
Here, the Living Field examines the relative effects of climate, international trade and conflict on global and local food systems.
The first topic is one that has risen to public concern in recent weeks due to conflict in eastern Europe.
FSN 1. Global wheat
Wheat is one of the three major cereals to provide the staple carbohydrate of large populations of humanity – the others being rice and maize. Though domesticated in the fertile crescent, wheat is better able to tolerate colder climates than the other two, and is now grown mostly in sub-tropical and temperate zones in the northern hemisphere.
Global wheat looks at the distribution of the crop and variation among major producing countries in area sown, total production and yield per unit area, then concentrates on its status in the UK and Scotland, as a home-grown and imported commodity.