Forests are often cleared to make way for large fields of a single food crop. Photo credit Corel Photo Clipart CD.
Twenty species
of plants provide 90% of the world's food, and just three of these plants supply more than half -- wheat, maize, and rice. These three plants
are mostly suited to cooler climates, while much of the world's population inhabits the tropics.
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| The winged bean of New Guinea has the potential to become an important food crop. The entire plant is edible -- the leaves, the seedpods, the seeds than can be cooked or ground into flour or even used to make a coffee-like beverage, and the tubers that have more protein than potatoes. The wing bean also raises soil fertility, and it can grow over four meters in just a few weeks. |
food & medicine -- page 4 of 4
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related topics
[temperate forests] [tropical forests] [plants] [seeds] [leaves] [soil]
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