The COVID pandemic, war in Ukraine, and extreme weather phenomena, likely the result of climate change, have significantly impacted global access to food and ingredients.
These recent events have shown just how vulnerable the world’s food supply is: the war in Ukraine has restricted access to sunflowers and their byproducts as well as fertilizers, and droughts affecting oat and pepper supplies have forced companies to look far and wide for alternative supply streams.
Two alternative chip makers, Eat the Change and Yolélé, have made it their mission to improve global food access by choosing unique ingredients that shift reliance from top crops like corn, wheat, and rice, to less utilized foods like agave, mushrooms, carrots, and fonio.
Eat the Change, a snack and iced tea maker spearheaded by former Honest Tea CEO Seth Goldman and chef Spike Mendelsohn, has made it its mission to strengthen the food supply chain while promoting healthy eating. The company’s chips are made from mushrooms, and other snacks are made from ingredients such as carrots.
Goldman told SFA News Daily that the company opts for these crops to promote biodiversity.
“To support biodiversity, we eliminate the six most common crops from all of our recipes, so no soy, corn, wheat, potatoes, rice, or sugar cane in any of our recipes,” he said. “When we grow monocultures [single crops without diversity], there are ripple effects. You create not just monoculture plants but also monoculture fauna that rely on the plants.”
Common crops such as wheat, corn, and rice are not dependent on pollinators. Conversely cocoa beans and fruits like kiwi, melons, and pumpkins require insects to facilitate production, according to Our World in Data. Without them, these crops can see a reduction of 90 percent or more.
If crops that aren’t dependent on pollinators continue to triumph, it may negatively affect yields of crops with pollinator reliance. Even plants with meager pollinator needs, like coffee beans or oil crops, could see yield reductions between 10 and 40 percent without insects.
Relationships between flora and fauna, like that of the fig and the fig wasp may also be jeopardized by monocultures. In this example, the wasp deposits its eggs in the fig and the fig relies on the wasp to grow. “Each species of wasp pollinates only one species of fig, and each fig species has its own wasp species to pollinate it,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
“As we think about resilience in the ecosystem, that’s one reason you want to avoid monocultures,” said Goldman. “The more biodiversity, the more resilient the planet is. When we talk about six crops representing 57 percent of all agricultural production, when we have that kind of reliance on a crop, whether we have a disease or changing weather condition that affects one of those crops, it threatens global food supplies. Whereas, if you have diversified the risk, you have a much better chance of not having that kind of impact.”
Pierre Thiam, chef, author, and founder of Yolélé, a specialty brand bringing fonio to the world stage, similarly advocates for the shift from monocultures.
When asked about the decision to focus on fonio, in addition to its importance in West African meals, Thiam said, “we thought fonio was checking a lot of boxes that the U.S. market is looking for, it cooks fast, it is very versatile, has a neutral taste, … gluten-free, nutritious, an ancient grain. It’s everything consumers today are looking for. It also grows in a way that is regenerative to the soil.” Soil regeneration helps the environment and the community that grows it because it helps to protect the soil and the crops.
Yolélé’s mission is deeply rooted in environmental activism, both in soil health and biodiversity, as well as social activisim.
The company’s fonio is sourced specifically from smallholder farmers. This decision began organically when Thiam was conducting cookbook-related research, finding that these farmers were “the poorest of west Africa with the most amazing products.” The decision to uplift these farmers by introducing them to the global market went hand in hand with the issue that Africa is a net importer of food despite the amount of arable land. As a solution, he created the brand to benefit the farmers, country, and the world’s food supply chain.
A stronger food system, for example, would better protect Africans when a problem arises like the war in Ukraine preventing the import of wheat into the country, exacerbating domestic food insecurity.
“Smallholder farmers are the solution to this food system that needs to be changed…they should be the one that should be supported, and their products go to market because that is how we save biodiversity. That’s how we strengthen our food system and diversify our food portfolio which is the most important thing right now because we have a limited diet because the food system has evoked that upon us and now when there is a crisis somewhere in the world, the whole world is in trouble,” Thiam continued. “[With smallholder farmers] we can mitigate a food crisis because there will always be a crisis. We won’t be depending on the region in trouble to feed the rest of the world.”
Thiam warns, however, that fonio should not become a “cash crop,” and traditional crop rotation should be honored, like the practices of the smallholder farms that frequently rotate crops between fonio, Bambara beans, millet, and more.
Eat the Change similarly participates in social activism by working with nonprofits to educate consumers and make “planet-friendly” diets accessible.
It takes more than one brand to impact the global market. Thiam noted that the world cannot afford to rely on one entity, like a government or food brand, to compel real change. Instead, everyone needs to play a part, including the individual consumer with what they choose to buy.
Related: Yolélé, Brooklyn Brewery Debut Fonio Beer; Stuckey Advises Makers to Perfect Product for Initial Launch