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Global food security is seriously threatened by the concerning effects of microplastics on the world's food production, according to a recent study. The study claims that microplastics negatively affect plants' capacity for photosynthesis, which is causing vital crops like maize, rice, and wheat to cease to exist. Experts estimate that between 4% and 14% of these staple crops are being lost due to the pervasive pollution. As microplastic contamination continues to increase, the effects could worsen in the coming years.
The Guardian published a report based on this study in which researchers suggest that microplastic pollution could potentially put an additional 400 million people at risk of starvation by 2040, worsening the already dire hunger crisis that affected 700 million people in 2022. Though the findings are concerning, experts emphasise the need for further studies to confirm and refine the data.
The annual crop losses caused by microplastics could be of a similar scale to those caused by the climate crisis in recent decades, the researchers behind the new research said. The world is already facing a challenge to produce sufficient food sustainably, with the global population expected to rise to 10 billion by around 2058, as per the news report.
Microplastics are broken down from the vast quantities of waste dumped into the environment. They hinder plants from harnessing sunlight to grow in multiple ways, from damaging soils to carrying toxic chemicals. The particles have infiltrated the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans.
"Humanity has been striving to increase food production to feed an ever-growing population [but] these ongoing efforts are now being jeopardised by plastic pollution," said the researchers, led by Prof Huan Zhong, at Nanjing University in China. "The findings underscore the urgency [of cutting pollution] to safeguard global food supplies in the face of the growing plastic crisis."
The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, combined more than 3,000 observations of the impact of microplastics on plants, taken from 157 studies.
Previous research has indicated that microplastics can damage plants in multiple ways. The polluting particles can block sunlight reaching leaves and damage the soils on which the plants depend. When taken up by plants, microplastics can block nutrient and water channels, induce unstable molecules that harm cells and release toxic chemicals, which can reduce the level of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll.
