![]() ![]() Our institutions are fundamentally conservative and were established to preserve the status quo. It is impossible because it cannot be faithfully implemented in supremacist and capitalist institutions created by men, for men. Doing so means accepting that achieving equality is impossible.Įquality isn’t impossible simply because the people in power won’t give it to us. It’s past time to give up the ghost of equality and pursue a goal that has hope of transforming women’s lives for the better: freedom. With odds like those, it’s well worth asking: What does “achieve gender equality” even mean? Laws can exist on the books, but how they are implemented and practiced determine their collective impact. Arguably, billionaires will land on Mars before we achieve gender equality. ![]() And worldwide, those dreaming of gender equality will have to wait another 300 years, according to the latest United Nations estimates. In the US, an equal rights amendment may never become law. We need to adapt our food sources just as quickly.In the intervening years since 1977, when 35 of the 38 states required to amend the Constitution ratified the ERA, six states (Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, South Dakota and West Virginia) rescinded their ratifications, rendering the ERA’s constitutional validity questionable even if the Senate had mustered the requisite 60 votes to waive the deadline. Once we have greater ability to reliably forecast crop performance, we'll avoid the long time needed to repeatedly grow and test new cultivars in field conditions and wait for the intense conditions needed to test how they respond. We can map the usefulness of these traits for specific regions by statistically testing correlations between different genes and measurements of plant traits. We are also working on accurate forecasting of climate resilience traits against the predicted changes to climates in our fruit growing regions. Finding genes to promote robustness will help.īut there are other genes we're looking for-those which code for improved yields and better fruit quality. If you're a gardener, you'll know some plants can take a lot of punishment-while others are finicky and can die easily. What would make these fruit trees and plants resilient to climate change? High tolerance to stress is vital. What we want is to find any characteristics which will boost survival rates in extreme conditions. What worked for chickpeas may not work for pawpaw and other fruit species. We want to do the same as for chickpeas: create climate resilient cultivars. Now we are using these techniques to mine the genomes of popular tropical fruit such as bananas and pineapples. This vigor safeguards their yields under drought stress. In these new and improved varieties, we see deeper roots, more vigorous growth and better leaf growth. You might think drought tolerance is about retaining water better. After we isolated these genes, breeders in India and African nations used this knowledge to produce new, more drought tolerant varieties. Plants with these genes can survive temperatures of up to 38℃ and produce better yields to boot. We have already used these techniques to find genes in chickpeas that code for better drought resistance. If the weather isn't cold enough, they don't grow and develop normally. That's because these trees usually go dormant during cold periods. The warping climate and heightened instability make it harder for fruit farmers to plan.Īlready, the Australian fruit industry has seen large-scale losses of young fruit trees, or seasons where fruit develops poorly.Īs winters get warmer, we could see lower apple, pear, cherry and nut yields. In some areas, there's less winter rainfall, and the ocean temperature is rising.įruit and vegetable growing is one of Australia's most important agricultural sectors, with an annual production value (excluding wine grapes) exceeding A$11 billion in 2021–2022.īut this could change. Droughts have become more severe, heatwaves and fire have intensified, and intense rainfall and floods are more common. What does climate change mean for horticulture?Īustralia, the driest inhabited continent, has already seen weather patterns shift. We've already done this with chickpeas to produce new, more resilient varieties. ![]() Our team has been working to climate-proof five popular fruits-banana, the single most commonly bought item in supermarkets, as well as pineapple, passionfruit, custard apples and paw paw. We're going to need plants with even greater resilience. But climate change is going to bring enormous disruption to the plants we rely on. ![]()
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