WEBVTT - Breadfruit! 0:00:02.470 --> 0:00:09.649 Hi, everyone. You're listening to It Could Happen Here. My 0:00:10.289 --> 0:00:13.850 name is Carlos Berrios Polanco, and today I'm going to 0:00:13.890 --> 0:00:18.640 be talking about breadfruit, a climate change-resistant crop that also 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.540 works as a tool for emergency preparedness. But before I 0:00:22.579 --> 0:00:25.440 get into that, let me tell you why I started 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.100 thinking about breadfruit in the first place. If you're anything 0:00:29.140 --> 0:00:32.980 like me, the effects of human-caused climate change on the 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.100 food that we eat and grow have been on your 0:00:35.140 --> 0:00:38.780 mind lately. Maybe you've been thinking about it because you 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:43.060 saw a scary-looking graph that shows the global temperature shooting 0:00:43.140 --> 0:00:46.460 up over the last few years and only increasing over 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.700 the next couple of decades. When this type of graph 0:00:49.780 --> 0:00:52.970 comes up in an article about food, it's usually accompanied 0:00:53.310 --> 0:00:56.890 by a rice or corn field so dry that the 0:00:56.930 --> 0:00:59.780 ground is cracked to show how bad it's gotten and 0:00:59.820 --> 0:01:03.490 how much worse it can get. Or maybe you're thinking 0:01:03.550 --> 0:01:05.790 about it because the price of foods that have become 0:01:05.830 --> 0:01:10.330 staples in your diet, like rice, chicken, and coffee, have 0:01:10.350 --> 0:01:13.910 gone up significantly year over year because of a mixture 0:01:13.990 --> 0:01:18.300 of different climate-related causes, has caused crop losses all over 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.199 the world, and for the very process of planting and 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:26.400 harvesting to become more expensive, a process known as quote-unquote climateflation. 0:01:27.190 --> 0:01:30.330 And in the case of more specialty foods like Florida oranges, 0:01:30.390 --> 0:01:33.789 for example, maybe they're not even available at the grocery 0:01:33.830 --> 0:01:36.390 store anymore because of how hard crops have been hit 0:01:36.430 --> 0:01:40.730 by extreme weather events and illness. To be clear, climate 0:01:40.770 --> 0:01:43.700 change isn't the only reason that food prices have gone 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.500 up lately. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz because 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.460 of the U.S. 's war on Iran has also certainly 0:01:49.500 --> 0:01:52.220 led to prices going up for everything across the board. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.420 But climate change is the main thing that has been 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.820 and will continue to affect the way that we consume 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.700 food into the future, especially as resources become scarcer and 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.750 we as a planet start realizing that what once worked 0:02:06.910 --> 0:02:09.329 to feed us isn't going to be viable forever. A 0:02:10.330 --> 0:02:14.149 study by the Climate Impact Lab found that every additional 0:02:14.190 --> 0:02:18.070 degree Celsius of global warming will lead to global production 0:02:18.190 --> 0:02:23.730 of six stable crops— corn, soybean, rice, wheat, cassava, and sorghum— 0:02:24.330 --> 0:02:28.970 to decrease by 4.4%, which is roughly equivalent to a 0:02:29.030 --> 0:02:34.690 loss of 120 calories per person per day. As Solomon Sheehan, 0:02:34.970 --> 0:02:37.269 one of the senior authors of this study and a 0:02:37.330 --> 0:02:41.889 professor of environmental sciences at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, 0:02:42.490 --> 0:02:47.330 told the UK Telegraph, quote, if climate warms by three degrees, 0:02:47.570 --> 0:02:51.290 that's basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast, 0:02:51.770 --> 0:02:55.750 end quote. This is pretty bad already, but it's going 0:02:55.830 --> 0:03:00.450 to affect the people already suffering from food insecurity the worst. 0:03:01.110 --> 0:03:03.609 And that's not to say that we're not growing enough food, 0:03:04.050 --> 0:03:06.590 just that it's not being distributed to the people who 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.620 need it most. Three degrees of warming would also cause 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.540 cataclysmic ecological effects for millions of people around the world, 0:03:14.780 --> 0:03:19.060 to include cities submerged by rising sea levels, months-long deadly 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:23.079 heat waves, and turn people into refugees by the millions. 0:03:23.900 --> 0:03:28.010 The regions most affected by climate change right now, like Africa, 0:03:28.110 --> 0:03:31.590 Southern Asia, and the Caribbean, would be the most affected 0:03:31.870 --> 0:03:34.869 by this. So I've really been thinking a lot about 0:03:34.910 --> 0:03:38.010 that lately, and I did what I always do whenever 0:03:38.070 --> 0:03:40.650 I start to think about collapse and cataclysm like that. 0:03:41.190 --> 0:03:43.130 I look for the ways that people around me are 0:03:43.190 --> 0:03:46.390 trying to deal with the effects of climate change in 0:03:46.430 --> 0:03:49.920 the best way that they can. That's why, on a 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.260 recent Friday morning, I found myself about an hour away 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.240 from my hometown of Caguas in a tiny little neighborhood 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.700 called Mariana that's nestled into the mountains of the municipal 0:03:59.740 --> 0:04:04.200 borderline between Yabucoa and Umacao. As I made my way 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.080 through the labyrinth-like roads up to the mountain that definitely 0:04:07.140 --> 0:04:09.640 were not made to fit two cars side by side, 0:04:09.980 --> 0:04:12.320 I knew that I was getting close because I started 0:04:12.380 --> 0:04:17.210 seeing nearly 100-foot-tall breadfruit trees reaching towards the heavens. I 0:04:17.250 --> 0:04:19.610 was there in late September right at the tail end 0:04:19.690 --> 0:04:24.029 of the breadfruit's harvest season. So the bright yellow-green football-sized 0:04:24.070 --> 0:04:26.270 fruits weren't as plentiful as they would be if I 0:04:26.290 --> 0:04:29.010 had come earlier in the month. If you've never seen 0:04:29.050 --> 0:04:32.100 a breadfruit or never tasted one, you should probably fix 0:04:32.140 --> 0:04:35.940 that as soon as you can. It's delicious. Breadfruit trees 0:04:36.020 --> 0:04:38.640 can grow up to 100 feet tall and are covered 0:04:38.740 --> 0:04:41.780 in large green leaves. The fruit itself can grow to 0:04:41.820 --> 0:04:45.200 be almost 15 pounds, but usually tops out at about 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.849 6 to 10 pounds. Per the Breadfruit Institute in Hawaii, 0:04:49.330 --> 0:04:53.270 it's an energy-rich food and a good source of complex carbs, fiber, 0:04:53.330 --> 0:04:56.450 and minerals like potassium and calcium, as well as vitamin 0:04:56.490 --> 0:05:00.060 B and others. Although some varieties grow with seeds, in 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.740 my experience, the majority don't. Therefore, about 90% of the time, 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.940 you're more likely to see breadfruit propagated through root cuttings 0:05:08.460 --> 0:05:12.180 or tissue cultures or something like that, rather than from seed. 0:05:13.100 --> 0:05:16.640 Red fruit trees grow extremely quickly, like up to four 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.380 feet per year, and will begin producing fruit in about 0:05:19.460 --> 0:05:23.529 three years. And it produces a lot of fruit, like 0:05:23.630 --> 0:05:27.550 between 100 or 200 individual fruits per tree, although some 0:05:27.610 --> 0:05:31.570 trees could blow past that. Harvest season depends on where 0:05:31.610 --> 0:05:36.169 these trees are grown, but it's generally late summer to fall, usually. 0:05:36.190 --> 0:05:39.680 The tree itself doesn't need too much care or perfect 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.390 growing conditions. Far from it, actually. As long as you 0:05:43.410 --> 0:05:46.650 can provide it with medium amounts of water and deep, fertile, 0:05:46.770 --> 0:05:50.340 and well-draining soils, it'll grow for you. And even then, 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.920 some varieties grow in atolls that are shallow and sandy, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:58.080 according to the Breadfruit Institute. And it'll also grow on hillsides. 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:03.060 That's why it's often touted as a quote-unquote climate-resilient tree, 0:06:03.250 --> 0:06:06.690 because it'll grow in a bunch of different conditions. It's 0:06:07.110 --> 0:06:10.510 really the goat of trees. As to what the fruit 0:06:10.550 --> 0:06:13.460 tastes like, well, it's in the name. When cooked, it 0:06:13.500 --> 0:06:16.060 tastes like bread, although I've read some people can describe 0:06:16.100 --> 0:06:18.240 it as kind of like a starchy and nutty potato. 0:06:19.020 --> 0:06:21.380 It can be used in a million different recipes and 0:06:21.500 --> 0:06:26.609 used in all states of ripeness, from completely raw to overripe. Personally, 0:06:26.810 --> 0:06:29.310 my favorite way to eat it is cooked into tostones, 0:06:29.430 --> 0:06:32.289 which are these kind of twice-fried flattened fritters that are 0:06:32.370 --> 0:06:35.350 usually made from plantain, but I prefer when they're made 0:06:35.390 --> 0:06:38.900 out of breadfruit. I've been to Mariana before, about three 0:06:38.940 --> 0:06:41.560 years ago, to work on a story about how communities 0:06:41.660 --> 0:06:45.270 affected by the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017 0:06:45.270 --> 0:06:49.150 and Hurricane Fiona in 2022 were designing their just recovery 0:06:49.230 --> 0:06:53.470 through bottom-up methods, like a community aqueduct to help ail 0:06:53.550 --> 0:06:56.820 a neighborhood's decades-long water issues, as well as a community 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.599 census to know who is the most vulnerable in case 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.020 of an emergency and make sure they got help first. 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.159 And in a sense, I was back there to cover 0:07:06.260 --> 0:07:09.400 essentially the same thing, except that this time it was 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.880 community preparedness through a breadfruit farm that they've planted at 0:07:13.500 --> 0:07:16.450 La Loma de la Niña Mariana, a kind of community 0:07:16.510 --> 0:07:21.390 park slash rec space. It's a really serene space, especially 0:07:21.490 --> 0:07:24.670 when it's empty. It's surrounded by breadfruit and other trees, 0:07:24.730 --> 0:07:27.300 so there's a lot of green, and the breeze is 0:07:27.340 --> 0:07:30.900 a welcoming reprieve from the near triple-digit temperatures we've been 0:07:30.940 --> 0:07:34.160 having lately. Mariana is the neighborhood that grows the most 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:38.620 breadfruit in Humacao, Rosalina Abreu tells me. She's a community 0:07:38.660 --> 0:07:42.770 leader who's part of the neighborhood's nonprofit organization, Arecma, which 0:07:42.830 --> 0:07:46.690 is in charge of community participation and development. As a 0:07:46.710 --> 0:07:49.870 quick note, I interviewed Rosalina in our native Spanish, but 0:07:49.930 --> 0:07:52.850 Mia from the Cool Zone team was gracious enough to 0:07:53.070 --> 0:07:56.530 read a translation of that interview here and in following sections. 0:07:56.550 --> 0:07:58.570 It's a tree with a strong root. 0:08:02.870 --> 0:08:06.730 It's resistant to hurricanes and any environmental changes. And a 0:08:06.770 --> 0:08:10.110 mature tree can yield a harvest of between 100 and 0:08:10.110 --> 0:08:16.240 300 to 400 breadfruits. Therefore, the harvest is fruitful and abundant. 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.860 Breadfruit has a long history here. Rosalina tells me that 0:08:21.900 --> 0:08:24.600 her family has always had a breadfruit tree or a 0:08:24.660 --> 0:08:29.040 couple growing near them going back generations because of how 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.840 much food it produces and because when you preserve it, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.210 it can last months with proper refrigeration. In Puerto Rico, 0:08:36.610 --> 0:08:39.990 it was originally used as sustenance for pigs and other livestock, 0:08:40.170 --> 0:08:43.350 but little by little, people started paying attention to how 0:08:43.429 --> 0:08:46.950 good the fruit was, how many nutrients it provided, and 0:08:46.990 --> 0:08:50.730 people started using it for everything. Mariana has been hosting 0:08:50.850 --> 0:08:53.790 a breadfruit festival between the end of August and the 0:08:53.809 --> 0:08:57.340 start of September amid the peak breadfruit harvest for 38 years. 0:08:58.870 --> 0:09:02.290 The community has also created a breadfruit recipe book that 0:09:02.330 --> 0:09:05.170 I'm flipping through as I read this script, and it 0:09:05.210 --> 0:09:08.250 has dozens and dozens of different things you make with 0:09:08.309 --> 0:09:13.050 it from fritters to flan and even juice. When Hurricane Maria, 0:09:13.220 --> 0:09:17.980 a Category 4 hurricane, tore through Puerto Rico in 2017, 0:09:17.980 --> 0:09:22.240 leaving thousands of people dead and causing more than $ 91 0:09:21.540 --> 0:09:26.440 billion in damages, Mariana was left more or less incommunicated 0:09:26.500 --> 0:09:29.880 from the rest of the world. Rosalina told me years 0:09:29.940 --> 0:09:31.900 ago that it was like a bomb had been dropped 0:09:32.340 --> 0:09:35.870 in their neighborhood. But knowing that the government wasn't coming 0:09:35.900 --> 0:09:38.950 to help their small rural community, they knew that the 0:09:39.090 --> 0:09:42.810 only people they could count on were themselves. So they 0:09:42.850 --> 0:09:45.770 got to work and opened a food distribution center at 0:09:45.809 --> 0:09:49.350 La Loma where they were feeding members of the community 0:09:49.410 --> 0:09:52.099 with whatever food they had on hand and whatever food 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.840 they could gather from the hundreds of breadfruit trees and 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:55.880 others in the neighborhood. 0:09:56.500 --> 0:10:00.110 Hemos visto que cuando hay necesidad la gente. 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.120 We've seen that when the need arises, people come here 0:10:05.179 --> 0:10:08.670 to look for breadfruit. And not only that, but the 0:10:08.710 --> 0:10:11.410 environment is full of trees that keep us cool, that 0:10:11.429 --> 0:10:15.559 provide a natural space for growth. And eventually we know 0:10:15.580 --> 0:10:17.700 that we are going to be one of the neighborhoods 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.260 best prepared for any situation that involves a food shortage. 0:10:21.300 --> 0:10:23.520 We're going to have breadfruit to share and to use. 0:10:24.940 --> 0:10:27.860 In fact, we have a kitchen here, a semi-industrial kitchen 0:10:27.900 --> 0:10:31.300 that opens to feed the neighborhood. During the time of Maria, 0:10:31.350 --> 0:10:34.930 we served 400 people daily that came looking for food here. 0:10:35.990 --> 0:10:38.610 We already have the kitchen, we have the trees planted. 0:10:38.630 --> 0:10:40.010 So we're already a step ahead. 0:10:42.070 --> 0:10:48.140 For the survival of our people if an event occurs. 0:10:49.059 --> 0:10:52.800 Neighbors in Mariana have planted about 80 breadfruit trees throughout 0:10:52.820 --> 0:10:56.780 La Loma as a kind of disaster insurance policy. There 0:10:56.820 --> 0:10:59.860 is probably not a fruit tree that can really withstand 0:10:59.920 --> 0:11:03.080 a hurricane or severe flooding or something like that, but 0:11:03.140 --> 0:11:05.800 if a breadfruit tree goes down, it'll likely start to 0:11:05.850 --> 0:11:08.900 spring back up from the roots. Of the four people 0:11:08.940 --> 0:11:11.320 that I interviewed for this episode, all of them told 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.300 me something similar. And if a breadfruit tree gets stripped 0:11:15.380 --> 0:11:17.870 of its leaves and its fruits by a storm, it'll 0:11:17.900 --> 0:11:22.010 probably start sprouting leaves a few weeks after and will 0:11:22.050 --> 0:11:26.370 probably produce breadfruit next harvest season. Something similar, although to 0:11:26.410 --> 0:11:31.180 a lower degree, happened when Hurricane Fiona hit in 2022. 0:11:31.179 --> 0:11:34.960 Rosalina explained to me that in the 1920s and. 0:11:34.900 --> 0:11:35.620 1930s, the U.S. 0:11:35.660 --> 0:11:38.780 Government tried to take down breadfruit trees to grow potatoes, 0:11:39.530 --> 0:11:41.469 but they didn't take away the roots, so it just 0:11:41.490 --> 0:11:44.610 sprang back up again. She also says that Puerto Rico's 0:11:44.650 --> 0:11:48.290 farmers took the tree up into the mountains. It usually 0:11:48.330 --> 0:11:50.890 grows closer to the beach and other places where it 0:11:50.950 --> 0:11:52.290 has thrived ever since. 0:11:56.660 --> 0:11:59.040 It looks like a Christmas tree with its bulbs because 0:11:59.179 --> 0:12:02.439 each branch has two or three bread fruits. And when 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:04.939 they're ripe, when it's harvest time, you look at it, 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:06.880 and it's really miraculous. 0:12:06.900 --> 0:12:13.260 Plus, it provides food, provides shade, it's resistant to the soil, 0:12:13.340 --> 0:12:16.780 meaning you can plant it in areas prone to landslides, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.760 and it will preserve the terrain so there's no collapses 0:12:19.870 --> 0:12:26.050 or landslides. So, for many reasons, it's a tree we 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.420 could consider miraculous. 0:12:31.940 --> 0:12:34.440 Breadfruit is one of the first crops to grow back 0:12:34.540 --> 0:12:37.780 in Puerto Rico after an extreme weather event. It also 0:12:37.820 --> 0:12:41.120 grows pretty much everywhere throughout the archipelago. And this is 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.980 super important because Puerto Rico is one of the countries 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:48.059 most affected by climate change, ranking sixth on German Watch's 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.740 Climate Risk Index. which looks at how countries are affected 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.300 by extreme weather events and how they cause loss of 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.860 life and how it impacts their GDP. Puerto Rico has 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:01.750 experienced several disasters caused by extreme weather over the years, 0:13:01.990 --> 0:13:04.970 the biggest of which were Hurricanes Irma and Maria and Fiona. 0:13:05.590 --> 0:13:09.890 Maria caused a loss of around 80% of the archipelago's crops, 0:13:10.070 --> 0:13:14.079 or about $ 800 million worth of food, according to the 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:18.920 New York Times. Meanwhile, Fiona caused about $ 159 million in 0:13:18.980 --> 0:13:21.840 losses for the agricultural industry per the AP. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:28.059 Breadfruit has proven to be drought resistant. It's wind resistant. 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:32.090 After Hurricane Maria, we were eating breadfruit first and we 0:13:32.110 --> 0:13:36.810 were eating local bananas and local plantains because they were 0:13:36.890 --> 0:13:39.650 highly affected by the winds, but they would come back. 0:13:40.250 --> 0:13:44.960 So it's very interesting how Even if the fruits are smaller, 0:13:45.100 --> 0:13:47.920 it will bear fruit, especially in a drought season. 0:13:48.580 --> 0:13:53.160 That's Marisol Villalobos, a co-founder of Amazar, a company that 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.420 sells breadfruit flour that's shelf-stable and can last years with 0:13:56.460 --> 0:14:00.500 no problems. Their farm's in Hayulla, and in 2017, her 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.770 and her husband, who's also a co-founder, had planted about 0:14:03.990 --> 0:14:06.670 two acres of their farm with breadfruit, but the saplings 0:14:06.730 --> 0:14:10.490 were little tiny sticks when Maria hit, and only one survived. 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.920 Marisol now calls it the quote-unquote matriarch tree. Nearly 10 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.680 years after that, their farm now has 500 breadfruit trees 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.760 that are producing hundreds and hundreds of pounds of breadfruit 0:14:22.820 --> 0:14:25.730 that they turn into flour every year. They're one of 0:14:25.770 --> 0:14:28.210 the first farms in Puerto Rico to grow breadfruit and 0:14:28.250 --> 0:14:31.490 cocoa at the same time. The breadfruit trees provide the 0:14:31.530 --> 0:14:35.650 necessary shade for cocoa to grow. They've also planted several 0:14:35.730 --> 0:14:38.820 other native trees throughout their farms. If you wanted to 0:14:38.860 --> 0:14:42.780 produce breadfruit at an industrial scale, this probably isn't the 0:14:42.820 --> 0:14:46.900 best way to go. Most industrial agriculture has one singular 0:14:46.980 --> 0:14:51.290 crop planted over large swaths of land to maximize production, 0:14:51.410 --> 0:14:57.070 ease of gathering, and resources. This is called monoculture. However, 0:14:57.090 --> 0:15:01.000 there's serious downsides to it, like needing to pump tons 0:15:01.050 --> 0:15:04.020 of fertilizer and compost into the soil to keep it 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.380 growing the same thing over and over again. as well 0:15:07.420 --> 0:15:10.220 as increasing the risk that a pest or illness will 0:15:10.300 --> 0:15:14.120 wreak havoc throughout the crop. The way Marisol grows breadfruit 0:15:14.420 --> 0:15:18.080 isn't ideal if they wanted to maximize production, but Marisol 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.750 isn't really bothered by it. Instead, she thinks it's better 0:15:21.770 --> 0:15:24.810 that way because of its positive effects on the soil 0:15:24.930 --> 0:15:25.650 and on the plants. 0:15:26.270 --> 0:15:29.750 Some people say, no, it might not be the best synergy. 0:15:30.250 --> 0:15:33.110 I see it in a way, you know, I'm enriching 0:15:33.210 --> 0:15:37.400 my model of agroforestry And what we produce is what 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.360 we produce. But if I have a more secure crop 0:15:41.420 --> 0:15:46.620 in terms of resilience and protection from sicknesses, illnesses, and plagues, 0:15:46.940 --> 0:15:48.040 I'm very happy with that. 0:15:48.700 --> 0:15:51.970 Puerto Rico grows very little of its own food, about 0:15:51.970 --> 0:15:54.770 10 to 15 percent, depending on the source that you 0:15:54.830 --> 0:15:58.390 look at. While breadfruit has been part of Puerto Ricans' 0:15:58.450 --> 0:16:02.000 diets for centuries... Production of it has been going down 0:16:02.140 --> 0:16:05.030 over the last few years as Puerto Rico becomes even 0:16:05.070 --> 0:16:09.830 more reliant on imports. Per data from the Archipelago's Department 0:16:09.850 --> 0:16:14.230 of Agriculture, production of breadfruit has gone down from 1991 0:16:14.230 --> 0:16:18.260 to 2019, the last year for which public data is available, 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.520 by about 771,000 pounds. Only about 650,000 pounds of breadfruit 0:16:20.540 --> 0:16:31.140 were produced in Puerto Rico in 2019, according to the data. Meanwhile, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:36.060 imports have risen rapidly from 2015 to 2019, reaching about 0:16:36.060 --> 0:16:42.900 830,000 pounds of breadfruit imported in 2019. So people are 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.250 still eating breadfruit. They're eating more of it, but we 0:16:46.290 --> 0:16:47.750 just can't grow it fast enough. 0:16:48.510 --> 0:16:52.010 So we definitely have a great opportunity in Puerto Rico 0:16:52.070 --> 0:16:55.920 to increase local production and local consumption with a crop 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:01.450 like breadfruit and especially incorporating other crops with it. Beans, vegetables, 0:17:01.710 --> 0:17:04.290 a lot of farinaceos, taro, plantains, all that. 0:17:04.450 --> 0:17:04.650 Yeah. 0:17:05.150 --> 0:17:09.290 And even animals, you know, nice farms that have both things, 0:17:09.550 --> 0:17:13.790 silver pasture with trees and with the animals. And then 0:17:13.810 --> 0:17:15.990 we have a little bit more protein there too. 0:17:16.470 --> 0:17:18.480 When we get back from the ad break, we're going 0:17:18.500 --> 0:17:21.560 to be talking about the history of breadfruit's voyage from 0:17:21.580 --> 0:17:24.320 the Pacific to the Caribbean and the rest of the 0:17:24.380 --> 0:17:27.920 world and how breadfruit is being distributed to help combat 0:17:28.020 --> 0:17:42.340 hunger crises everywhere. And we're back. You're listening to It 0:17:42.380 --> 0:17:45.280 Could Happen Here. I'm Carlos, your host for today's episode. 0:17:46.300 --> 0:17:49.420 And while breadfruit has become a staple in the Caribbean 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.879 because of how easily it grows and its ability to 0:17:51.900 --> 0:17:56.619 be turned into a gazillion different things, it's not native here. Instead, 0:17:56.820 --> 0:18:00.639 it's originally from the Western Pacific, specifically from New Guinea 0:18:00.780 --> 0:18:04.350 and the Indo-Malay region. Thousands of years ago, it was 0:18:04.410 --> 0:18:08.010 spread by the indigenous Polynesians who were the literal first 0:18:08.090 --> 0:18:11.609 people to travel across the region. They would travel on 0:18:11.670 --> 0:18:14.619 double-hulled canoes that are nothing like what we know of 0:18:14.780 --> 0:18:17.780 as canoes today. Instead, each hull could reach up to 0:18:17.780 --> 0:18:20.320 100 feet in length, they had a sail, and they 0:18:20.340 --> 0:18:22.979 could fit entire families as well as the food and 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.280 resources they needed to settle on the islands they were 0:18:26.340 --> 0:18:29.600 traveling to. And one of the things they carried were 0:18:29.700 --> 0:18:33.030 breadfruit saplings because of how much fruit it would produce 0:18:33.210 --> 0:18:33.910 when planted. 0:18:34.550 --> 0:18:36.750 In the case of breadfruit, it was usually the little 0:18:36.810 --> 0:18:38.890 saplings that shoot up from the roots. They would cut 0:18:38.930 --> 0:18:41.389 them and pack them in a ball of earth and 0:18:41.450 --> 0:18:44.560 leaves and keep them moist so that they could plant 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.940 them on the new island and have the same familiar 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.699 foods that they were used to wherever they were coming from. 0:18:50.410 --> 0:18:54.790 That's Russell Fielding, an associate professor at Coastal Carolina University 0:18:54.890 --> 0:18:59.410 in South Carolina who researches geography and environmental justice and 0:18:59.570 --> 0:19:02.670 who wrote the book Breadfruit, Free Global Journeys of a 0:19:02.690 --> 0:19:06.710 Bountiful Tree. He explained that one of the Pacific people's 0:19:06.869 --> 0:19:10.060 earliest uses for breadfruit was roasting it in an earth oven, 0:19:10.170 --> 0:19:12.600 which is when you create a pit, put burning coals 0:19:12.660 --> 0:19:15.740 in there, then the fruit, then more coals on top, 0:19:15.820 --> 0:19:18.040 and then you cover it all with stones and soil. 0:19:18.619 --> 0:19:20.840 This type of cooking is common to a bunch of 0:19:20.940 --> 0:19:25.340 indigenous cultures across the world, and it produces delicious food. 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.100 Another way that the people of the Pacific use breadfruit 0:19:29.140 --> 0:19:31.879 that Russell's never seen outside of the region is putting 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.690 it into a dark pit, making sure there's no airflow, 0:19:35.770 --> 0:19:38.889 and then letting it ferment. This turns it into a 0:19:38.930 --> 0:19:41.790 sort of paste that can be stored for a long time. 0:19:42.330 --> 0:19:45.090 It tastes kind of tart, almost like citrus, Russell told me. 0:19:45.930 --> 0:19:48.790 Its name depends on which Pacific island you're on, but 0:19:48.830 --> 0:19:51.020 the people of the Marquesas call it Ma. 0:19:51.690 --> 0:19:55.480 And so this fermented breadfruit was used as kind of 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.520 an insurance against times of scarcity, where, you know, if 0:19:59.540 --> 0:20:02.080 you get a big crop of breadfruit, like you said, 0:20:02.740 --> 0:20:05.500 a single tree in a single season produces lots of fruit. 0:20:06.100 --> 0:20:07.780 So if it's more than you need for the time being, 0:20:07.820 --> 0:20:10.040 you can ferment some of it to store it away 0:20:10.100 --> 0:20:12.780 for later. And then maybe there's a drought or a 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.440 famine at some point and you have to dip into 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:16.120 your reserves. 0:20:16.980 --> 0:20:19.949 This shows that the history of breadfruit as an emergency 0:20:20.010 --> 0:20:25.410 preparedness tool goes back millennia. People and the breadfruit they 0:20:25.470 --> 0:20:29.970 carried continued spreading across the Pacific. When the Europeans colonized 0:20:29.990 --> 0:20:33.060 the region, they essentially forced the people to switch from 0:20:33.100 --> 0:20:38.199 breadfruit to imports from the globalized market. Crops like coffee, pineapples, 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.440 and sugar overtook the breadfruit groves in taro patches, while 0:20:42.500 --> 0:20:45.719 rice became a staple of the Pacific diet, according to 0:20:45.780 --> 0:20:50.359 Russell's book. It's a story anyone familiar with colonization or 0:20:50.420 --> 0:20:53.460 who's been a victim of it knows all too well. However, 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:57.480 breadfruit has seen a resurgence in recent times. In Hawaii, 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.500 according to an article in Civil Beat, breadfruit production is booming, 0:21:01.940 --> 0:21:05.180 but similar to Puerto Rico, farmers can't keep up with demand. 0:21:06.130 --> 0:21:09.010 We'll get back to the modern-day breadfruit situation in a second. 0:21:09.350 --> 0:21:12.209 But before that, let's talk about how breadfruit made its 0:21:12.290 --> 0:21:14.830 way all the way from the Pacific to the Caribbean. 0:21:15.410 --> 0:21:18.260 It wasn't until the very end of the 18th century 0:21:18.820 --> 0:21:22.540 that breadfruit made its jump to the Caribbean. And this 0:21:22.580 --> 0:21:27.899 was intentional. This was directed by the European colonialists. It 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.980 was the British that eventually succeeded first, but they weren't 0:21:31.030 --> 0:21:33.869 the only ones trying. The French had also made efforts 0:21:33.930 --> 0:21:37.810 to bring breadfruit to the Caribbean. And there's some hypothesis 0:21:37.830 --> 0:21:41.370 that the Spanish were also moving breadfruit around the same time. 0:21:41.410 --> 0:21:42.910 But the British did it first. 0:21:43.550 --> 0:21:46.330 You might have heard this story before. The story of 0:21:46.369 --> 0:21:50.129 the mutiny on the bounty. Every time I mentioned to 0:21:50.170 --> 0:21:53.210 someone that I was working on this breadfruit project, they 0:21:53.250 --> 0:21:57.250 would mention the original 1945 movie, the mutiny on the bounty, 0:21:57.350 --> 0:22:01.290 or the 1962 remake with Marlon Brando to me. And 0:22:01.310 --> 0:22:04.080 I would be like, yeah, for sure. But let me 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.760 be honest with you, dear listener. I did not know 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.260 that these movies existed up until a couple of weeks 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:13.880 before recording this episode. And to be honest, they're pretty good. 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:19.199 3.5 stars on Letterboxd. Anyway, as European colonization wrecked terror 0:22:19.310 --> 0:22:22.449 and death throughout the Caribbean, the British came up with 0:22:22.490 --> 0:22:26.389 a plan to transport breadfruit from their Pacific colonies to 0:22:26.410 --> 0:22:28.990 their Caribbean colonies, all of which had more or less 0:22:29.050 --> 0:22:32.639 the same climate. to feed the enslaved people that they 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:37.379 had kidnapped from Africa and forced to work on sugar plantations. So, 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.899 the British assigned William Bly to the HMS Bounty, and 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.720 they traveled to Tahiti to load upon breadfruit. Bly, as 0:22:45.740 --> 0:22:49.610 authoritarians commonly do, was quick to anger and routinely verbally 0:22:49.660 --> 0:22:53.790 berated and physically assaulted his crew, who eventually mutinied and 0:22:53.850 --> 0:22:58.560 sent Bly in his loyalist packing. However, Bly eventually made 0:22:58.619 --> 0:23:00.980 his way back to England, where he would once again 0:23:01.140 --> 0:23:03.979 make his way back to Tahiti and eventually reach his 0:23:04.050 --> 0:23:08.129 original goal of bringing breadfruit to the Caribbean. He first 0:23:08.170 --> 0:23:13.050 stopped in St. Vincent in 1793, then Jamaica shortly after. 0:23:13.830 --> 0:23:16.670 Then breadfruit was all over the Caribbean in a few 0:23:16.730 --> 0:23:19.550 short years, even reaching the state of Florida a few 0:23:19.590 --> 0:23:23.189 decades later, where it's still really the only place in 0:23:23.210 --> 0:23:26.200 the continental U.S. where it can grow outside without too 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.990 much trouble. although it really only mostly grows in the 0:23:30.070 --> 0:23:33.040 Keys and the warmest parts of South Florida because it's 0:23:33.210 --> 0:23:35.840 super susceptible to a cold snap. 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.820 It was specifically intended to feed people that were enslaved 0:23:41.460 --> 0:23:46.830 on sugar plantations or otherwise impoverished. I know that not 0:23:46.869 --> 0:23:49.570 every island was practicing slavery at the time that breadfruit 0:23:49.590 --> 0:23:53.810 was imported to that island, but breadfruit was never really 0:23:53.890 --> 0:23:57.119 intended as food a food for everyone. It was for 0:23:57.220 --> 0:24:00.920 the poor and the enslaved. And unfortunately, that gave breadfruit 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.770 something of a stigma or a negative reputation in a 0:24:04.790 --> 0:24:06.730 lot of places throughout the Caribbean. And you can even 0:24:06.790 --> 0:24:09.850 still find traces of that today, where it's referred to as, 0:24:10.390 --> 0:24:13.710 you know, poor man's food or comida y barro, where 0:24:13.830 --> 0:24:16.790 it's still got that association today with poverty. 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.939 Russell explained that while slavery was still going on, people 0:24:20.980 --> 0:24:24.260