Warming Seas Threaten Key Phytoplankton Species That Fuels the Food Web (apnews.com) 121
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: For decades, scientists believed Prochlorococcus, the smallest and most abundant phytoplankton on Earth, would thrive in a warmer world. But new research suggests the microscopic bacterium, which forms the foundation of the marine food web and helps regulate the planet's climate, will decline sharply as seas heat up. A study published Monday in the journal Nature Microbiology found Prochlorococcus populations could shrink by as much as half in tropical oceans over the next 75 years if surface waters exceed about 82 degrees Fahrenheit (27.8 Celsius). Many tropical and subtropical sea surface temperatures are already trending above average and are projected to regularly surpass 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 Celsius) over that same period.
"These are keystone species -- very important ones," said Francois Ribalet, a research associate professor at the University of Washington's School of Oceanography and the study's lead author. "And when a keystone species decreases in abundance, it always has consequences on ecology and biodiversity. The food web is going to change." Prochlorococcus inhabit up to 75% of Earth's sunlit surface waters and produce about one-fifth of the planet's oxygen through photosynthesis. More crucially, Ribalet said, they convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into food at the base of the marine ecosystem. "In the tropical ocean, nearly half of the food is produced by Prochlorococcus," he said. "Hundreds of species rely on these guys."
Though other forms of phytoplankton may move in and help compensate for the loss of oxygen and food, Ribalet cautioned they are not perfect substitutes. "Evolution has made this very specific interaction," he said. "Obviously, this is going to have an impact on this very unique system that has been established." The findings challenge decades of assumptions that Prochlorococcus would thrive as waters warmed. Those predictions, however, were based on limited data from lab cultures. For this study, Ribalet and his team tested water samples while traversing the Pacific over the course of a decade.
"These are keystone species -- very important ones," said Francois Ribalet, a research associate professor at the University of Washington's School of Oceanography and the study's lead author. "And when a keystone species decreases in abundance, it always has consequences on ecology and biodiversity. The food web is going to change." Prochlorococcus inhabit up to 75% of Earth's sunlit surface waters and produce about one-fifth of the planet's oxygen through photosynthesis. More crucially, Ribalet said, they convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into food at the base of the marine ecosystem. "In the tropical ocean, nearly half of the food is produced by Prochlorococcus," he said. "Hundreds of species rely on these guys."
Though other forms of phytoplankton may move in and help compensate for the loss of oxygen and food, Ribalet cautioned they are not perfect substitutes. "Evolution has made this very specific interaction," he said. "Obviously, this is going to have an impact on this very unique system that has been established." The findings challenge decades of assumptions that Prochlorococcus would thrive as waters warmed. Those predictions, however, were based on limited data from lab cultures. For this study, Ribalet and his team tested water samples while traversing the Pacific over the course of a decade.
Projections for 75 years from now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Projections for 75 years from now... (Score:5, Informative)
I know it is easy to dismiss.
A few years ago my mother complained about the government "wasting" money on research into ocean algae / plankton die-offs. I had to explain to her that ocean algae and plankton generate an estimated 50-80% of the oxygen on the planet and if they die off we all might have a big problem breathing.
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No offense to your mother... (Score:4, Insightful)
... but I get tired of listening to ignorant or just plain stupid people who don't seem to understand that the enviroment is their and their childrens life support system. Perhaps they think as long as there's a supermarket with stocked shelves everythings ok, I dunno. Their thought processes frankly elude me.
Re:No offense to your mother... (Score:4, Insightful)
... but I get tired of listening to ignorant or just plain stupid people who don't seem to understand that the enviroment is their and their childrens life support system. Perhaps they think as long as there's a supermarket with stocked shelves everythings ok, I dunno. Their thought processes frankly elude me.
What's truly sad is there are some folks who I would deem relatively intelligent on a great number of other subjects, but they have been flooded with messaging their entire lives about how important profit and economic concerns (for the wealthy only, of course) are to the point where anything that may have even a tiny negative impact on profitability, like consideration for the environmental impact of certain business practices, becomes the enemy. And our news cycles are FILLED with this messaging, to the point where it can't be considered anything but propaganda. We are a society so concerned with propping up profit for the already wealthy that we give no concern at all to the thought of changing the environment we live in to the point where it becomes uninhabitable for us. Profit is more important to the decision makers, and too many folks take the news and opinion shows, all owned by these same wealthy folks who profit from changing the environment, as gospel.
Greed will do its damage, because we as a species seem to insist on it to the exclusion of all other thoughts.
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Indeed. Economic growth - with no explanation as to why ultimately enviromentally unsustainable constant growth is required - seems to have become a modern day religion amongst economists and politicians.
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... but I get tired of listening to ignorant or just plain stupid people who don't seem to understand that the environment is their and their children's life support system. Perhaps they think as long as there's a supermarket with stocked shelves everything's ok, I dunno. Their thought processes frankly elude me.
My mother also doesn't want to pay taxes because of "all the freeloaders" (she watches a LOT of Fox "News" - sigh) and I reminded her that, among other things, taxes pay for a lot of services, like police, firefighters, roads, city maintenance, etc... that she uses or may need.
Re: Projections for 75 years from now... (Score:1)
What if your model ignores things like manganese nodules that produce oxygen on the ocean floor by electrolysis?
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Past Suggests Our O2 will be Fine (Score:2)
I had to explain to her that ocean algae and plankton generate an estimated 50-80% of the oxygen on the planet and if they die off we all might have a big problem breathing.
Yes, but this makes little sense. The planet has been much warmer in the past, even just a few million years ago, and there was clearly an abundance of marine life and breathing organisms back then. Global warming is going to be incredibly disruptive for our civilization but the idea that there will be no oxygen to breath is utter nonsense: if that were true life would not have survived the far warmer global temperatures it has in the past.
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Anoxic oceans have been a factor is past mass extinctions.
Yes, but they have also occurred frequently and the vast majority are not associated with mass extinctions at all. They are thought to be more common when the global temperature is high because that reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water (and global temperatures were much higher in the period where many of these events have been foune), but they have occurred naturally throughout the geological record and are generally regional events, sometimes associated with volcanic activity and/or large d
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I had to explain to her that ocean algae and plankton generate an estimated 50-80% of the oxygen on the planet and if they die off we all might have a big problem breathing.
Yes, but this makes little sense. The planet has been much warmer in the past, ...
Algae and plankton die off for a variety or reasons, not just ocean warming; the studies were looking at all causes.
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The difficulty is not the temperature: new algae can presumably evolve adapted grow in the new warmer environment. The difficulty is the speed of temperature change
True, but of all the life on the planet bacteria and algae can spread far faster than just about anything else since their reproductive life cycle is so short. Short of instantaneous changes, like volcanic eruptions or meteor impact, they should be able to spread fast enough to accommodate any human-induced change. Its the larger organisms like plants and animals where the speed of change is a serious factor.
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If we're that concerned about the speed of adaption, we can always breed them in tanks with the temperature and other important factors set to the conditions we want them to adapt to and force them to adapt much faster than they would in nature.
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You speak very authoritatively for someone who has no idea what he's talking about.
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The reason to dismiss them is this:
In 2060 the poor suckers we call the next generation are not going know what I knew, I'm guessing
Predicting the future of humanity is hard. 75 years in the future is an eternity in modern times. Even 35 years is a very, very long time.
75 years ago we barely had computers. In the USA, 20% of households did not even have a flushing toilet or running water. Cars? Phones (regular land lines!)?, TVs? Air conditioning?
See: https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
Now we're in the age of AI, we have Solar PV and wind power being massively deployed, even Dune-esque wind traps being d
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Sure, because internet, mobile phones, wifi, social media, and AI didn't have any effect on our society.
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The problem the GPP ignores is that when it comes to forest ecology and wildlife, well a lot of the things people want to do lower greenhouse emissions are pretty bad for what forests most need to be successful and healthy, that is large unbroken acreages.
Every 100 ft wide miles long path you bulldoze thru a forest for powerlines to your new solar or wind facility does a hell of lot more harm than a little CO2 increase. People need to recognize just how incompatible it all is.
Reality is the only answer to m
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path you bulldoze thru a forest for powerlines to your new solar or wind facility
What is this moronic strawman?
You're arguing 'deforestation through solar PV/wind is a problem'? How about you provide some evidence for that, then we'll talk.
What? (Score:2)
The problem the GPP ignores is that when it comes to forest ecology and wildlife, well a lot of the things people want to do lower greenhouse emissions are pretty bad for what forests most need to be successful and healthy, that is large unbroken acreages.
Every 100 ft wide miles long path you bulldoze thru a forest for powerlines to your new solar or wind facility does a hell of lot more harm than a little CO2 increase. People need to recognize just how incompatible it all is.
Renewables are not a major cause of deforestation https://www.joinact.org/misinf... [joinact.org]. You're making that up.
As for power lines, those are something we have to build no matter what the power source is and regardless of what the source is it's probably somewhere remote.
2) efficent, relatively clean oil/gas extraction and use.
How on earth will that save us? It's impossible to reach net zero using oil and gas for power without some sort of incredibly energy efficient carbon capture technology that's more or less sci fi right now and without net zero global warming kee
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Yep, much better to cut a 100 ft wide, 100's of mile long strip through the forest for an oil pipeline. Then another for a leaky gas pipeline.
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Maybe all of that air pollution was making the earth cool.
Exactly that, sulfur dioxide reflects sunlight so was masking the effect of increasing carbon dioxide. Eliminating acid rain unmasked it, and the "cooling" was very minor compared to the heating happening now, though.
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By fall, do you mean leaves dropping off the heat stressed trees early like is happening here on the west coast of Canada? As for the axial tilt and various other changes in the orbit of the Earth, yes it drives climate change on a few thousand-100,000 year time scale, not a couple of hundred years. Your also correct that global dimming caused by smog and sulpher dioxide did cause cooling as well as a lot of other problems.
Dire prediction. (Score:1)
Less phytoplankton -> less krill -> fewer whales.
This will seriously dampen our impending whale-oil based energy economy here in the U.S.
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Re:Dire prediction. (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it. Anyhow, the alleged administration is helping to turn the renewable energy sector over to the Chinese. They've been investing lots and now the rest of the world is noticing.
Lest you think anti-renewables is some la Presidenta idea, he's too dim-witted to think of anything himself. He's just a useful idiot for the Project 2025 people who are in bed with the hydrocarbon industries. They come up with some idea they think is profitable for them, have a conversation with la Presidenta, and Presto-Chango, he believes whatever they told him he believes. Soon thereafter, the Maggots have been told they believe this too.
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I doubt it. Anyhow, the alleged administration is helping to turn the renewable energy sector over to the Chinese. They've been investing lots and now the rest of the world is noticing.
Of the 60 or so civil nuclear power reactors currently under construction about half of them are in China. Did anyone notice that?
If you want to hold up any nation as some model to follow on renewable energy then there must be a better option than China. If China had absolute faith in renewable energy sources to provide all the energy they'd need then they'd not be starting construction on nuclear power plants that would take 6 years to complete and at least a decade to pay back all the materials and labo
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Sure. We could have 10x the people if we all stayed within walking distance of where we were born, had vegetarian diets, only used renewable energy, didn't wash much, lived miserable lives, died young, and existed completely differently from how we do now.
Re:We are so fucked (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not saying these things are bad, especially not renewables. They are certainly not all great overall. Eating vegetarian leaves me very hungry all the time. Our lifestyle right now is quite good, but it's not sustainable with current populations. It is a good thing that western nations have falling birthrates, but it won't do any good if the third world undoes the population drops with immigrants that will use just as much energy per capita.
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Yes, every person is valuable. No, resources are not infinite. The human spirit clearly cannot overcome any obstacle. It is not me against them. It is just practicality.
Re: We are so fucked (Score:1)
How much energy is curtailed in the US? More than we actually use?
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I don't know what you mean.
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Re: We are so fucked (Score:1)
What if we've decided we don't like kids and thus fertility is crashing, because kids are a stupid pain?
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Like I said, I make no judgements.
Personally, I suspect the human population is going to experience a fairly significant crash and then a bounce back. People who dont reproduce will get replaced by people who do. Its a very straightforward populat
Re: We are so fucked (Score:3)
The areas growing the fastest NEED birth control. But will never happen.
Now you're calling out my religion. I was taught that every sperm is sacred, so, excuse me, I have to go uphold that sacred covenan
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Ending USAID is probably a good thing in the long run. People who don't have to work and just get fed will naturally have more kids.
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Compared to those who need labour for their farm and their retirement plan and those kids having an unknown survival rate.
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The key here is “done correctly”. Adding more people to already-poor-starving-and-desperate parts of
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If every resource were perfectly allocated and managed, maybe we could have many more people with great lifestyles. Probably not. More importantly, there's no way in hell we'll have perfectly managed and allocated resources. It's just as likely that all dogs will learn to walk only on their hind legs and will never bark. It's conceivable. It's just not going to happen.
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Sure. We could have 10x the people if we all stayed within walking distance of where we were born, had vegetarian diets, only used renewable energy, didn't wash much, lived miserable lives, died young, and existed completely differently from how we do now.
Or, we could exploit the energy locked up in uranium and thorium using nuclear fission technologies that exist today so we live long and healthy lives as we travel around the world, and learn to travel to new planets in our solar system.
If the concern is how to travel the seas without digging up more carbon and releasing it as greenhouse gases then if we look to the technology and manufacturing ability we have today there's two clear paths with a third that might be less obvious. First is the option to bui
That's a pointless exaggeration (Score:2)
The point being that we're not going to have 10 times as many people. 1980 called and they want their sci-fi dystopia panic back. Overpopulation isn't the problem it's political dystopia and techno feudalism.
Yeah we would probably have problems if we had 80 billion people but we don't and we never will. It's looking like we're probably not even goi
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It's a dirty secret that people who live in suburbs work in the city? Wow. Shocking.
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The single reason why it's possible to keep this many people alive right now is cheap fossil fuels, it's just not possible to feed 8 billion people with natural fertilizers.
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I believe there is plenty for everybody. There has always been this belief is scarcity, and few have my belief in plenty. There is plenty, and a potential for the population to easily grow 10x from now,
I've been watching the Decouple Media channel for a while and there's two recurring themes. First, the world is made of molecules. We can take raw materials, add some energy and creativity, then come out with something useful. Part of this is a lesson that too many think on the time scales of writing code, and this is somewhat understandable given how much of our lives revolve around how much our lives improved so quickly because of software. What a lot of that software has done though is made it more e
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You get your news from YouTube? Color me shocked, retard.
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You get your news from YouTube? Color me shocked, retard.
Would you prefer I read newspapers? Watched TV? Listened to a radio? Then what kind of radio? AM, FM, or satellite?
Why not get upset about people that read books to learn things? While there's varied quality of content in books at least there's no attachment to some subscription that allows for the book to be taken away for not paying, or the content sitting on some server where it could be modified to adjust for the changes in political winds. I know YouTube content is not likely to be static, but th
Oh so stupid (Score:2)
I'm sorry that you don't know how journalism, education, and ethics work in professional areas. Instead, you go to the metaphorical cesspool and drink deeply, certain that you're drinking champagne. But hey, the champagne over there? It's not perfect, right?
I bet you "do your own research".
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I'm sorry that you don't know how journalism, education, and ethics work in professional areas. Instead, you go to the metaphorical cesspool and drink deeply, certain that you're drinking champagne. But hey, the champagne over there? It's not perfect, right?
Could you give me a hint on how professional journalism works? You claim to be concerned that I'm getting my news from the "wrong" places but gave nothing to guide me to the "right" places. Why is that? You could not give a few examples on where you get your news?
I bet you "do your own research".
I've noticed not only quite a few commenters on Slashdot fail to cite sources, and that when asked to cite sources I'm told to do my own research. So, if you believe I'm on the wrong path on educating myself then I'd also believe you'd feel com
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Davos would love you.
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They're the ones who should be killed first.
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Not happening. If anything they'll kill us all and give themselves a pat on the back afterwards.
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Perhaps the only thing that can save us at this point is a good pandemic that makes COVID look like a cuddlefest. When 99/100 people are bleeding through every orifice until dead, we'll have a chance to try anew. Hmmm... Maybe 999/1000.
Is that you, RFK?
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Insane incompetence saving humanity is better than nothing saving humanity. As I said, we are so fucked.
Re: We are so fucked (Score:2)
The Department of War is ringing me, let me take this call .
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Nukes will kill the entire species. Better a pandemic that will just kill most of us.
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We're armed to the teeth, and desperation or other pressures could so very easily lead to "I'm not going to live forever" or "If I can't have it no one can have it" or other ego mad justifications. Others have suggested the nightmarish scenario that the craziest and weakest nuclear power can now detonate 1 bomb in the ocean and basically wipe out 100's of Millions of people with a tidal wave. <shudder> Pick an ocean.
Pearl Harbour could ha
makes me wonder ... (Score:2)
... how marine life could exist and flourish in the warm periods of the past, like in the late cretaceous period. Is there a correlation in the fossil record between average temperatures and sustainable biomass? It's more likely that different species occupied their niche when Prochlorococcus receded.
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Over 75 years is the key (Score:1)
The over 75 years part is the key to this non-sense story.
Over that same 75 year period the plankton will no doubt evolve to flourish in a wider temperature range. That's what life does, it adapts to changing environments.
This kind of climate alarmism is a PsyOp.. stay rational, think it through and don't be fooled..!
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Re: Global warming (Score:1)
Can you please open borders and allow right to camp?
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Hunger has not been a problem of supply for most of my adult life. Starting in the 60s. The US sent "surplus commodities" and much more overseas.
The real problem has been, during that time, war and socialism. And this continues. Climate change may indeed affect food production, but getting even a little bit of it where it is desperately needed is the real problem, has been, and still is.
ps - I still believe growing food for fuel is wrong, but that is a corollary to my initial point food is too often not
Re: Global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
British mangoes won't have much of a market when there's no fish or wheat or people.
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British mangoes
There most likely will be not British mangoes. One of the consequences of global warming is that the warm ocean current, the gulf stream, that warms the UK in the winter will shutdown. If that happens then the UK's climate will become similar to that Labrador in eastern Canada where the winters make it hard to grow a mango crop.
Re:Global warming (Score:5, Interesting)
Mosquitos. They LOVE warm weather and the nastiest of the nasty little critters are moving northward. They've packed their bags full of tropical diseases. As one little feller was heard to exclaim when arriving in Michigan with his mosquito family: Wheee!! We're here!!!
You mean they're moving back (Score:2)
Here in the UK we had malaria mosquitos until the early 20th century when a lot of swamps and marshes were drained and framing practices changed. They're hardier than you think.
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Framing = farming. Bloody auto correct.
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You obviously have never spent a summer in Michigan, they already exist in swarms big enough to drain a moose in minutes. They're the primary reason why almost no one lives outside of the towns in the Upper Peninsula.
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Ditto in Maine and Acadian Canada. Even Newfoundland. And by now, certainly southern Labrador.
Re:Global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
Summers will be longer, more free solar power
That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
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Yes, eventually life will adapt, though there is always a lag. This time the climate is changing so fast that the lag may be too long.
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Simple: Because, for example, those "3 harvests" will not materialize.
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That has been the mantra of the climate change deniers... "don't worry, we will all benefit from a warmer climate"
Unfortunately, that is not turning out to be true.
Warming is leading to lower crop production and disruption where the "climate" is fighting back with storms, droughts, etc.
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Warming is leading to lower crop production and disruption where the "climate" is fighting back with storms, droughts, etc.
The latest statistics revealed that the global production of primary crops increased by 52 percent between 2000 and 2020, to 9.3 billion tonnes in 2020. Four individual crops accounted for half the global production of primary crops in 2020: sugar cane, maize, rice and wheat. The global fruit production went up 55 percent between 2000 and 2020, while that of vegetables increased by 65 percent over the same period.
https://www.fao.org/statistics... [fao.org]
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