![]() Tunisian barley yields rise when cactus is grown alongside as a soil-improving alley crop, and preliminary research suggests including cactus in cattle diets reduces the ruminants’ methanogenesis, thus contributing to lower greenhouse gas emissions, according to the book. Projected pressure on water resources in the future make cactus “one of the most prominent crops for the 21 st century,” says Ali Nefzaoui, a Tunis-based researcher for ICARDA, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas. At times of drought, livestock survival rate has been far higher on farms with cactus plantations. Apart from providing food, cactus stores water in its pads, thus providing a botanical well that can provide up to 180 tonnes of water per hectare – enough to sustain five adult cows, a substantial increase over typical rangeland productivity. The cactus pear’s ability to thrive in arid and dry climates makes it a key player in food security. ![]() The plant is also commonly grown on farms in North Africa and Ethiopia’s Tigray region has around 360,000 hectares of which half are managed. Today, Brazil is home to more than 500,000 hectares of cactus plantations aimed to provide forage. Opuntias are grown on small farms and harvested in the wild on more than 3 million hectares, and increasingly grown using drip irrigation techniques on smallholder farms as a primary or supplemental crop. The prickly pear has an oval shape with red-purple skin that has numerous small spines or needles. This type of cactus typically grows in hot and arid regions, including the Sonoran Desert, Mexico, New Mexico, Texas, and California. It has a long tradition in its native Mexico, where yearly per capita consumption of nopalitos – the tasty young pads, known as cladodes – is 6.4 kilograms. A prickly pear cactus fruit is an edible fruit that grows on the nopal cactus. “Climate change and the increasing risks of droughts are strong reasons to upgrade the humble cactus to the status of an essential crop in many areas,” said Hans Dreyer, director of FAO’s Plant Production and Protection Division.Ĭactus pear cultivation is slowly catching on, boosted by growing need for resilience in the face of drought, degraded soils and higher temperatures. The new book also offers tips on how to exploit the plant’s culinary qualities as has been done for centuries in its native Mexico and is now a well-entrenched gourmet tradition in Sicily. To spread knowledge of how to manage the cactus pear effectively, FAO and ICARDA launched Crop Ecology, Cultivation and Uses of Cactus Pear, a book with updated insights into the plant’s genetic resources, physiological traits, soil preferences and vulnerability to pests. Its hardy persistence makes it both a useful food of last resort and an integral part of sustainable agricultural and livestock systems. Today the agriculturally relevant Opuntia ficus-indica subspecies – whose spines have been bred out but return after stress events – is naturalized in 26 countries beyond its native range. While most cacti are inedible, the Opuntia species has much to offer, especially if treated like a crop rather than a weed run wild.
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