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One way to increase [[crop yields]] is to simply ''grow different crops''.
One way to increase [[crop yields]] is to simply ''grow different crops''.


Which crops get the highest yields? The answer is different in every region of the world. See [[/chart|this chart]] for all crops and all countries. Note: the page is quite big and may be slow to load.
Even if we only measure yields in terms of calories & protein {{p2|(see why)|
'''Why is ranking ''only'' based on protein and calories?'''
<br />It's true that humans need a lot more than just protein and calories. We also need vitamins, minerals, fiber, and omegas (3 and 6). '''But''' in a world where farm land is scarce (which ''is'' today's world, in the sense that both [[hunger]] and [[deforestation]] are happening), protein and calories are of greatest concern. Here's why:
<br />- There is almost always an overabundance of fibre in crops regardless. There are [[biomass waste|parts of plants]] we don't eat ''because'' they are so fiberous.
<br />- Nearly every crop in its natural form contains ''some'' vitamins and minerals.
<br />&emsp;- Absolute worst case, if there are any missing nutrients, they can be supplemented/fortified with almost zero land footprint.
<br />&emsp;- But as you will see in the generated scenario below, optimizing for calories & protein actually improves the range of vitamins & minerals anyway.
<br />- Omegas 3 & 6 are a genuine concern. I'll add these into the analysis when I get the time. The next version of the [[nutrition calculator]] will include omegas 3 & 6.
}}
per unit of farm[[land]], it turns out that the top-yielding crops are incredibly varied between countries - vegetables, fruits, grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, or even spices - depending on the region.


==Scenario overview==
See the [[/chart|full chart]] for every country and every food crop. Note: the page is quite big and may be slow to load.
Let's explore a hypothetical scenario in which every country grows mainly its highest-yielding crops.


<tab name="Scenario technical details" collapsed>
<small>''For the rest of this page, the word "yield" is shorthand for "calorie and/or protein yield".''</small>
 
==Imagined scenario==
Suppose every country grew mostly its top-yielding crops. We don't want a pure monoculture{{x|as this would probably actually be ''bad'' for yields in the long run}}, but suppose that high-yield crops are grown ''much more often'' than low-yield crops.
 
[[User:Elie|I]] decided to do some data analysis to see what this scenario might look like.
<tab name="Technical summary of the analysis" collapsed>
<small>''Using data on average local yields for each crop in each country:''</small>
'''For each country:'''
'''For each country:'''
* Each crop is given an amount of land proportional to the ''square'' of its ''yield score.''
* Each crop is given an amount of land proportional to the ''square'' of its ''yield score.''
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:::* Weighting: 2000 calories is equivalent to 60 grams of protein.
:::* Weighting: 2000 calories is equivalent to 60 grams of protein.
* Total amount of farmland (all crops combined) is the same as the status quo.
* Total amount of farmland (all crops combined) is the same as the status quo.
<small>This scenario is generated by [[Code:food1.sql]], which uses data from [https://fao.org FAO] (crop production/yields) and [https://usda.gov USDA] (nutrition data).</small>
I generated the scenario by writing [[Code:food1.sql]], which uses data from [https://fao.org FAO] (crop production/yields) and [https://usda.gov USDA] (nutrition data).
</tab>
</tab>


'''Some key findings'''
'''Some key findings'''
* Globally, total crop yields (calories) would be almost doubled.
* Globally, total crop yields (calories) would be almost doubled.
* In Africa, total crop yields (calories) would be tripled.
* In Africa, total crop yields (calories) would be tripled.
* The food supply would be more nutritionally complete. {{p2|(...)|'''When comparing the nutritional content per 2200 [[Term:kalories|kalories]]:'''<br />- The ''status quo'' does not meet the daily recommendations for potassium, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B5 (pantothenate) and vitamin B12.<br />- The ''new scenario'' would meet the daily requirements for all nutrients except vitamin D (normal for food in general) and vitamin B12 (normal for unfermented plant-based foods).<br />See section below for nutrition calculator links.}}
* The food supply would be more nutritionally complete. {{p|''When comparing the nutritional content of the global food crop supply:''<br />'''per 2200 [[Term:kalories|kalories]] of food:'''<br />&emsp;- The ''status quo'' does not meet the daily recommendations for potassium, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B5 (pantothenate) and vitamin B12.<br />&emsp;- The ''new scenario'' would meet the daily requirements for all nutrients except vitamin D (normal for food in general) and vitamin B12 (normal for unfermented plant-based foods).<br />For more details, see the [[#Nutrition calculator links]] section below.}}
* There would be far more fruits & vegetables (which vary widely by region). {{x|So many, in fact, that they provide the bulk of calories & protein in the diet. It's not possible for a human to eat this many fruits & vegetables in their raw form. But they could be transformed into juices, concentrates, or even flours to be used in baked goods. Food ingredients would certainly look a lot different in this scenario.}}
* There would be far more fruits & vegetables (which vary widely by region).<!-- {{x|So many, in fact, that they provide the bulk of calories & protein in the diet. It's not possible for a human to eat this many fruits & vegetables in their raw form. But they could be transformed into juices, concentrates, or even flours to be used in baked goods. Food ingredients would certainly look a lot different in this scenario.}} NOTE: This expandable is commented out because I wrote the same stuff below so it's now redundant. -->
* '''However,''' some food choices are '''very questionable''' - such as ridiculously large amounts of garlic & chili peppers. {{x|We're talking a whole pound of garlic+chilis per person per day. The sheer volume of this provides a significant amount of protein & calories in the diet. But for this to actually work in real life, there would probably have to be some kind of processing to remove most of the pungency (capsaicin, allicin, etc) because otherwise it would just be too much for anyone to handle. In a way, this would be similar to how today's food supply is based on grains that need to be cooked to destroy antinutrients. Garlic & chili probably get high yields because they're too pungent for most pests to eat.}}
* '''However,''' some food choices are very questionable - such as ridiculously large amounts of garlic & chili peppers.<!-- {{x|We're talking a whole pound of garlic+chilis per person per day. The sheer volume of this provides a significant amount of protein & calories in the diet. But for this to actually work in real life, there would probably have to be some kind of processing to remove most of the pungency (capsaicin, allicin, etc) because otherwise it would just be too much for anyone to handle. In a way, this would be similar to how today's food supply is based on grains that need to be cooked to destroy antinutrients. Garlic & chili probably get high yields because they're too pungent for most pests to eat.}} -->




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For a detailed breakdown by country, see [[/per_capita|this page]].
For a detailed breakdown by country, see [[/per_capita|this page]].
==Awkward findings==
===Extremely high vegetable production===
It might be strange to think of garlic and chili peppers as being sources of protein, but in some places they are so high-yielding that they technically could be. This might not work so well in practice, as you'd have to eat a whole bowl of garlic cloves or hot peppers just to get a noticeable amount of protein. The pungency of these food crops is probably a factor in why they can be so high-yielding (very few pests will eat them, perhaps).
Other vegetables can also be high-yielding - in some regions, the sheer volume of them ''could'' provide calories & protein. But in order for a person to consume enough, the vegetables would probably have to be dehydrated and ground into flour. {{x|Vitamins may be lost from this, but minerals wouldn't.}} {{x|In the case of garlic and chili powders, we'd need to actually ''remove'' some of the flavor in order to be able to eat more / use as flour. This would require a whole food-engineering project.}}
This opens up a whole world of culinary experimentation - making foods from mostly vegetable flours (plus some fresh vegetables and other ingredients).
'''However,''' we still don't know if this could ''actually'' help feed the world or not. Some questions remain '''unanswered:'''{{rn}}
* Vegetables are normally a lot more expensive than grains and pulses, per dry mass;
** Is this due to a high labor-intensity of harvesting? <small>If so, scaling up vegetable production could be a major problem. {{x|If it's labor-intensive enough, the whole idea should be scrapped; otherwise it would just promote [[wage-slavery]].}}</small>
** Or is it mainly due to the perishability of fresh vegetables? <small>If so, dried non-perishable vegetable powders could be inexpensive and not a problem.</small>
*** <small>Hopefully this is the case. One piece of evidence for it: Some countries can make sugar cheaply from sugar beets (a root vegetable).</small>
* Are there any technical impediments that would make this whole thing a bad idea?
* How to encourage farmers in "the right" regions to grow "the right" veggies to maximize calorie/protein yields?
** <small>Important because ''this'' particular optimization is ''not'' the norm{{x|there are probably a whole lot of economic reasons why}}, according to the data{{x|Some of the foods that are abundant in the [[#Imagined scenario]], actually have quite low "world-average" yields currently (see [[/chart]], row "World"). This means the crops are "grown in the wrong places", in a way.}}. Doing the vegetable-powder idea with ''today's'' configuration of who-grows-what-where would actually make the whole feeding-the-world-situation '''''worse''''', not better. {{x|Sorry for the awkward phrasing - I'm not sure if better terminology even exists.}}</small>
===Importance of imports & exports===
In the imagined scenario, some countries produce one or two foods almost exclusively. This wouldn't make a balanced diet. But since each country produces ''different'' foods, the overall global food supply is ''very'' balanced. Even on a continent-wide scale, there's enough variety of foods to make balanced diets.
In other words, countries would have to trade with each other ''a lot''. This would require more [[shipping]] as food would be less local. But still, overall carbon emissions would probably be lower, because of all the deforestation prevented (see below). Keep in mind that food ''transport'' is only a small percent of food's environmental footprint. And it could be smaller still if foods are processed locally and shipped in their more concentrated forms.
But also, keep in mind that this whole analysis was done with only country-level data. It could very well be that ''within'' each country, different crops are optimal in different regions. This is especially likely in any country that has multiple types of land. So in many cases, a country probably ''could'' produce a diverse local diet while still maximizing calorie & protein yields.


==Nutrition calculator links==
==Nutrition calculator links==
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* Not all foods can fit in the nutrition calculator, so the totals appear slightly less than the [[/per_capita|actual totals]].
* Not all foods can fit in the nutrition calculator, so the totals appear slightly less than the [[/per_capita|actual totals]].
* The bar graphs overflow a lot. To make it easier to visually compare nutrients, try increasing the "Time Scale" to several days.
* The bar graphs overflow a lot. To make it easier to visually compare nutrients, try increasing the "Time Scale" to several days.


==Using the crop choices to prevent deforestation==
==Using the crop choices to prevent deforestation==


Improving [[crop yields]] can allow us to:
The [[#Imagined scenario]] above, the total ''farmland'' stays the same but food ''production'' vastly increases. This was chosen ''only'' for simplicity sake.
* grow more food from the same amount of land {{x|This is the hypothetical scenario above, which was chosen only for simplicity sake.}}
* grow ''the same amount'' of food using ''less'' land
* something in-between: Using a bit less land and also producing a bit more food.
Which one is best? Depends on whether food is currently abundant or scarce.


The "in between" is probably best for the world, overall - because:
In actual fact, we don't have to increase food production ''that much''{{x|the existing global food supply [[:File:food-funnel.png|would be]] more than enough if we didn't waste so much food, and if we didn't feed so much food to farm animals}}. We could use the high-yielding crop choices as a way to use ''less land'' for agriculture. By reducing the demand for [[land]], we could get rid of the economic pressures that cause [[deforestation]]. And besides just forests, it would become easier to preserve wild ecosystems in general.<!-- TALK: I think we should also explore the idea of reducing wild animal suffering, not just preserving nature in its raw (sometimes brutal) form. This is a whole other topic and there's definitely room for it on this wiki. Even in this philosophy, preserving biology still has its benefits, to eventually gather enough scientific knowledge to build [[animal utopias]] on the land we spared from agriculture. -->
* Even modest increases in food supply would be enough to end [[hunger]], and
* Even modest decreases in land usage would be enough to end [[deforestation]].


==Economics==


====Labor & costs====
==Africa==
The scenario involves a lot of fruits & vegetables which are currently more expensive (per calorie) than grains. If the costs have anything to do with farm [[labor]], then we're looking at a scenario that would require a lot more people to work in agriculture. Then again, maybe not - perhaps the high prices of fruits/vegetables have more to do with grocery stores keeping them ''fresh''. Consider how some countries can make sugar cheaply from sugar beets (a root vegetable, in some sense). Perhaps we could make similarly cheap nonperishable products (but hopefully more nutritious than sugar!) from abundant produce.
 
====Importance of imports & exports====
In the scenario, some countries grow an extreme amount of certain foods (foods that wouldn't, on their own, make a balanced diet). But worldwide - and even continent-wide, the food supply is quite nutritionally balanced (see nutrition calculator links). In other words, countries would really have to trade with each other.
 
This would require more [[shipping]] as food would be less local. But still, overall carbon emissions would probably be '''lower''', because of all the deforestation prevented (see above). Keep in mind that ''food transport'' is only a small percent of food's environmental footprint. And it could be smaller still if foods are ''processed'' locally and shipped in their more concentrated forms.


==Africa==
Of all the continents, Africa currently produces the least amount of [[/per capita|food crop per capita]]. This is probably a significant cause of Africa's high [[hunger]] rates {{p2|(although technically it doesn't have to be)|[[Term:primary|Primary]] production is still higher than the average person's nutritional needs, but just barely, so any food waste/loss or crop-fed livestock lower the supply to below sufficiency.}}. In the crop-choices scenario imagined, Africa's food crop production{{x|in terms of calories and nutrients in general}} is effectively tripled{{x|which is almost certainly "overkill" but important for illustrating the extent to which crop choices can make a difference}}. This is achieved by reallocating farmland: less land for grains, more land for sugarcane, chilis, bananas, potatoes, and garlic.
* Interpretation 1: Africa would benefit from growing more of these high-productivity crops instead of grains. Perhaps there's a historical reason for growing grains - maybe European colonialists thought it was a good idea because grains get high yields in Europe. In that sense, if Africa switched to the other (more productive) crops, it can be a form of [[decolonization]].
* Interpretation 2: Sugarcane etc. gets higher yields but only because corporations invest more money & [[fertilizer]] into growing it. First-world countries want sugar, and their spending power makes it happen (highly-valued currency). The same economics doesn't care about Africa's grains, because grains can be grown "at home" in rich countries. Perhaps if African grain farmers had more access to resources{{x|fertilizer? something else? depends on the specific case; this would be a whole topic in itself}}, grains would yield just as many calories as sugarcane.
* Interpretation 3: None of this really matters, because the whole crop-choices scenario is too hypothetical, and involves unrealistic dietary choices.
These interpretations are opposed to each other. The current dataset can't tell us which one (if any) is true. If you have some insight, join the {{talk}}.


Of all the continents, Africa currently produces the least amount of [[/per capita|food crop per capita]]. This is probably a significant cause of Africa's high [[hunger]] rates {{p2|(although technically it doesn't have to be)|{{todo}}}}. In the crop-choices scenario imagined, Africa produces 3 times as much food (both in terms of calories and protein). This is achieved by reallocating farmland: less land for grains, more land for sugarcane, chilis, bananas, potatoes, and garlic.
* Interpretation 1: Africa would benefit from growing more of these high-productivity crops instead of grains. Perhaps there's a historical reason for growing grains - maybe European colonialists thought it was a good idea because grains get high yields in Europe. In that sense, if Africa switched to the other (more productive) crops, it would be a form of [[decolonization]].
* Interpretation 2: Sugarcane gets higher yields only because corporations invest more money & [[fertilizer]] into growing it. First-world countries want sugar, and their spending power makes it happen (highly-valued currency). The same first-world system doesn't care about Africa's grains, because grains can be grown "at home". So in Africa, grains get regarded as a "peasant crop", and the people who grow them are the poorest farmers and can't afford fertilizer. If it weren't for all this, perhaps grains would yield just as many calories as sugarcane.
* Interpretation 3: None of this really matters, because the whole crop-choices scenario is too hypothetical, and involves people eating an unrealistically high amount of chili peppers and garlic.
These interpretations are opposed to each other. The current dataset can't tell us which one (if any) is true. If you have some clues, join the {{talk}}.


==More considerations==
==More considerations==
====Monoculture vs polyculture====
====Monoculture vs polyculture====
Be careful not to interperet these results as "This one crop is the best, let's just grow that and nothing else!" It could be that some crops [[companion planting|depend on each other]] for their high yields. I recommend growing ''a mix of'' top crops, and especially include [[legumes]] for [[nitrogen fixing]].
Be careful not to interpret these results as "This one crop is the best, let's just grow that and nothing else!" It could be that some crops [[companion planting|depend on each other]] for their high yields. I recommend growing ''a mix of'' top crops, and especially include [[legumes]] for [[nitrogen fixing]].
====Local variation====
====Local variation====
If a country is geographically big enough, different parts probably have different top-yielding crops (due to different soil/climate/etc). The current dataset doesn't have any info on this - crop yields are only a country-level average.
If a country is geographically big enough, different parts probably have different top-yielding crops (due to different soil/climate/etc). The current dataset doesn't have any info on this - crop yields are only a country-level average.

Revision as of 02:59, 31 January 2023

One way to increase crop yields is to simply grow different crops.

Even if we only measure yields in terms of calories & protein (see why) Why is ranking only based on protein and calories?
It's true that humans need a lot more than just protein and calories. We also need vitamins, minerals, fiber, and omegas (3 and 6). But in a world where farm land is scarce (which is today's world, in the sense that both hunger and deforestation are happening), protein and calories are of greatest concern. Here's why:
- There is almost always an overabundance of fibre in crops regardless. There are parts of plants we don't eat because they are so fiberous.
- Nearly every crop in its natural form contains some vitamins and minerals.
 - Absolute worst case, if there are any missing nutrients, they can be supplemented/fortified with almost zero land footprint.
 - But as you will see in the generated scenario below, optimizing for calories & protein actually improves the range of vitamins & minerals anyway.
- Omegas 3 & 6 are a genuine concern. I'll add these into the analysis when I get the time. The next version of the nutrition calculator will include omegas 3 & 6.
per unit of farmland, it turns out that the top-yielding crops are incredibly varied between countries - vegetables, fruits, grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, or even spices - depending on the region.

See the full chart for every country and every food crop. Note: the page is quite big and may be slow to load.

For the rest of this page, the word "yield" is shorthand for "calorie and/or protein yield".

Imagined scenario

Suppose every country grew mostly its top-yielding crops. We don't want a pure monoculture(...)( as this would probably actually be bad for yields in the long run ), but suppose that high-yield crops are grown much more often than low-yield crops.

I decided to do some data analysis to see what this scenario might look like.

Using data on average local yields for each crop in each country: For each country:

  • Each crop is given an amount of land proportional to the square of its yield score.
  • The yield score is based on both calories and protein (human-edible only).
  • Weighting: 2000 calories is equivalent to 60 grams of protein.
  • Total amount of farmland (all crops combined) is the same as the status quo.

I generated the scenario by writing Code:food1.sql, which uses data from FAO (crop production/yields) and USDA (nutrition data).

Some key findings

  • Globally, total crop yields (calories) would be almost doubled.
  • In Africa, total crop yields (calories) would be tripled.
  • The food supply would be more nutritionally complete. [''']When comparing the nutritional content of the global food crop supply:
    per 2200 kalories of food:
     - The status quo does not meet the daily recommendations for potassium, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B5 (pantothenate) and vitamin B12.
     - The new scenario would meet the daily requirements for all nutrients except vitamin D (normal for food in general) and vitamin B12 (normal for unfermented plant-based foods).
    For more details, see the #Nutrition calculator links section below.
  • There would be far more fruits & vegetables (which vary widely by region).
  • However, some food choices are very questionable - such as ridiculously large amounts of garlic & chili peppers.


Maps - food crop production:

For a detailed breakdown by country, see this page.


Awkward findings

Extremely high vegetable production

It might be strange to think of garlic and chili peppers as being sources of protein, but in some places they are so high-yielding that they technically could be. This might not work so well in practice, as you'd have to eat a whole bowl of garlic cloves or hot peppers just to get a noticeable amount of protein. The pungency of these food crops is probably a factor in why they can be so high-yielding (very few pests will eat them, perhaps).

Other vegetables can also be high-yielding - in some regions, the sheer volume of them could provide calories & protein. But in order for a person to consume enough, the vegetables would probably have to be dehydrated and ground into flour. (...)( Vitamins may be lost from this, but minerals wouldn't. ) (...)( In the case of garlic and chili powders, we'd need to actually remove some of the flavor in order to be able to eat more / use as flour. This would require a whole food-engineering project. )

This opens up a whole world of culinary experimentation - making foods from mostly vegetable flours (plus some fresh vegetables and other ingredients).

However, we still don't know if this could actually help feed the world or not. Some questions remain unanswered:[RESEARCH needed]

  • Vegetables are normally a lot more expensive than grains and pulses, per dry mass;
    • Is this due to a high labor-intensity of harvesting? If so, scaling up vegetable production could be a major problem. (...)( If it's labor-intensive enough, the whole idea should be scrapped; otherwise it would just promote wage-slavery. )
    • Or is it mainly due to the perishability of fresh vegetables? If so, dried non-perishable vegetable powders could be inexpensive and not a problem.
      • Hopefully this is the case. One piece of evidence for it: Some countries can make sugar cheaply from sugar beets (a root vegetable).
  • Are there any technical impediments that would make this whole thing a bad idea?
  • How to encourage farmers in "the right" regions to grow "the right" veggies to maximize calorie/protein yields?
    • Important because this particular optimization is not the norm(...)( there are probably a whole lot of economic reasons why ), according to the data(...)( Some of the foods that are abundant in the #Imagined scenario, actually have quite low "world-average" yields currently (see /chart, row "World"). This means the crops are "grown in the wrong places", in a way. ). Doing the vegetable-powder idea with today's configuration of who-grows-what-where would actually make the whole feeding-the-world-situation worse, not better. (...)( Sorry for the awkward phrasing - I'm not sure if better terminology even exists. )


Importance of imports & exports

In the imagined scenario, some countries produce one or two foods almost exclusively. This wouldn't make a balanced diet. But since each country produces different foods, the overall global food supply is very balanced. Even on a continent-wide scale, there's enough variety of foods to make balanced diets.

In other words, countries would have to trade with each other a lot. This would require more shipping as food would be less local. But still, overall carbon emissions would probably be lower, because of all the deforestation prevented (see below). Keep in mind that food transport is only a small percent of food's environmental footprint. And it could be smaller still if foods are processed locally and shipped in their more concentrated forms.

But also, keep in mind that this whole analysis was done with only country-level data. It could very well be that within each country, different crops are optimal in different regions. This is especially likely in any country that has multiple types of land. So in many cases, a country probably could produce a diverse local diet while still maximizing calorie & protein yields.


Nutrition calculator links

The links below show the crops as foods in the nutrition calculator, as food per day per capita.

World: before after
Africa: before after
Asia: before after
Europe: before after
North America: before after
Oceania: before after
South America: before after

Note:

  • This is primary production, which is significantly higher than what people actually eat.
  • Not all foods can fit in the nutrition calculator, so the totals appear slightly less than the actual totals.
  • The bar graphs overflow a lot. To make it easier to visually compare nutrients, try increasing the "Time Scale" to several days.


Using the crop choices to prevent deforestation

The #Imagined scenario above, the total farmland stays the same but food production vastly increases. This was chosen only for simplicity sake.

In actual fact, we don't have to increase food production that much(...)( the existing global food supply would be more than enough if we didn't waste so much food, and if we didn't feed so much food to farm animals ). We could use the high-yielding crop choices as a way to use less land for agriculture. By reducing the demand for land, we could get rid of the economic pressures that cause deforestation. And besides just forests, it would become easier to preserve wild ecosystems in general.


Africa

Of all the continents, Africa currently produces the least amount of food crop per capita. This is probably a significant cause of Africa's high hunger rates (although technically it doesn't have to be)Primary production is still higher than the average person's nutritional needs, but just barely, so any food waste/loss or crop-fed livestock lower the supply to below sufficiency.. In the crop-choices scenario imagined, Africa's food crop production(...)( in terms of calories and nutrients in general ) is effectively tripled(...)( which is almost certainly "overkill" but important for illustrating the extent to which crop choices can make a difference ). This is achieved by reallocating farmland: less land for grains, more land for sugarcane, chilis, bananas, potatoes, and garlic.

  • Interpretation 1: Africa would benefit from growing more of these high-productivity crops instead of grains. Perhaps there's a historical reason for growing grains - maybe European colonialists thought it was a good idea because grains get high yields in Europe. In that sense, if Africa switched to the other (more productive) crops, it can be a form of decolonization.
  • Interpretation 2: Sugarcane etc. gets higher yields but only because corporations invest more money & fertilizer into growing it. First-world countries want sugar, and their spending power makes it happen (highly-valued currency). The same economics doesn't care about Africa's grains, because grains can be grown "at home" in rich countries. Perhaps if African grain farmers had more access to resources(...)( fertilizer? something else? depends on the specific case; this would be a whole topic in itself ), grains would yield just as many calories as sugarcane.
  • Interpretation 3: None of this really matters, because the whole crop-choices scenario is too hypothetical, and involves unrealistic dietary choices.

These interpretations are opposed to each other. The current dataset can't tell us which one (if any) is true. If you have some insight, join the discussion.


More considerations

Monoculture vs polyculture

Be careful not to interpret these results as "This one crop is the best, let's just grow that and nothing else!" It could be that some crops depend on each other for their high yields. I recommend growing a mix of top crops, and especially include legumes for nitrogen fixing.

Local variation

If a country is geographically big enough, different parts probably have different top-yielding crops (due to different soil/climate/etc). The current dataset doesn't have any info on this - crop yields are only a country-level average.

Social, economic, and technological factors

We can't prove that the top-yielding crop is always better-suited for the local region. In some cases, perhaps there are just more resources invested into it, such as fertilizer. In which case, some currently-less-productive crops could be just as good if given a chance. The current dataset has no info on this.

See also

  • Food - the main page which includes other possible ways to improve the global food supply.