Tasting the Future: Exploring the Role of Salt-Tolerant Crops in Sustainable Food Systems at World Food Day

The event kicked off with a welcoming introduction from Martijn van Staveren and Babette Bodlaender, referencing the ongoing work of the SWFS partnership, followed by a short presentation by Pim van Tongeren (VU) to introduce the topic of salinity and the issues related to that in the Netherlands as well as in other parts of the world.

A highlight of the session was a food-tasting session led by Flang Cupido and Willemijn Steentjes from ‘Flang in de Pan’, where participants could get a real taste of delicious bites made from salt-tolerant crops. This hands-on experience, supplemented by information on the crops' local relevance to Terschelling and their potential to scale globally, engaged the audience in discussions about the crops’ nutritional benefits and adaptability.

The event also featured a dynamic panel discussion moderated by Pim and Babette, bringing together experts such as Sophie van der Vis (master graduate VU), Pauline Drost (Van Hall Larenstein), Feroz Islam (WUR), and Bas Bruning (Salt Doctors). The panel explored saline crops' potential to contribute to global food security, the role of markets and supply chains in supporting the transition, the consumer perspective, and the environmental impacts these crops could have in regions like Texel in the Netherlands and globally, for instance, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

The session concluded with Martijn summarizing key takeaways. For sure, all participants were inspired by the opportunities of saline agriculture, as envisioned by Ivo Demmer’s opening speech during the plenary session of World Food Day. The main conclusions were that challenges lie ahead: technical challenges when it comes to finding the right combination of seeds, soil and water quality to grow salt-tolerant crops or even halophytes (salt-loving crops). Societal challenges were identified in terms of the adoption of saline produce in daily menus, and to make sure that consumers have reliable access to such produce through (super) markets or other channels.

This event is one of the engagement activities organized by the Saline Water & Food Systems (SWFS) partnership, which focuses on the full spectrum of dealing with the challenge of salinity, which ranges from prevention to mitigation and adaptation. This session discussed saline agriculture and halophytes as adaptation examples, highlighting their potential in sustainable food systems.