Nearly half (45 percent) of the land in the United States is dedicated to agriculture—that is, to producing food. Making food, on an industrial scale, requires significant resources, not only in acres of land, but also millions of gallons of water, plus pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, and machinery. On a global scale, food productivity (yields per acre) has made measurable gains: Food production increased 150 percent while additional land area only increased 12 percent. However, this rate of productivity is starting to slow: 25 percent of the land on earth that was once productive is now deemed “degraded.” Land that is degraded no longer has adequate soil nutrients and water to produce food. Most important: The resources to produce food are not keeping pace with the demand for food. More than ever, wasting 40 percent of food (and everything that is entailed in producing that food) doesn’t make common sense.
Of the food that is being produced on available land acreage, the number of plant species is relatively few, lacking in diversity compared to what could be. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations considers diversification of edible food species a high priority for the future security of global food supplies. The FAO has appealed to managers of land in every country to deepen their knowledge and usage of wild edible plants as integral to stewardship and every land management plan.
What are these special wild edible plants? Many of them are underappreciated “weeds.” Weeds are the survivors of drought, blight, and pests. Since they have not been domesticated, they have been forced to cope on their own (as plants do in nature), relying on their own chemical and biological defenses. Interestingly, many of these chemical compounds function, when consumed by humans, as phytonutrients and antioxidants. Jo Robinson explains in Eating on the Wild Side: “Purslane has six times more vitamin E than spinach and fourteen times more omega-3 fatty acids. It has seven times more beta carotene than carrots.” It should be no surprise then that Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food names purslane and lambsquarters, common weeds found around the world, as the two most nutritious plants on the planet. Despite herculean efforts and dollars spent to eradicate wild, untamed weeds, these plants still persist, against all odds. Rather than accepting defeat against the wild weedy plants of the earth, it is worth considering how wild plants can have a beneficial place in the future of food on the planet. And maybe, once we invite a few into our kitchen, we might even start to look at the energies we use to eradicate them as the ultimate food waste.