Time magazine used a recent article to describe how current shortages in tomato paste due to drought could lead to shortages of ketchup in the future, since manufacturers of ketchup and other tomato-based products use tomato paste to produce their products when ripe tomatoes are not available. After several years of drought, stocks of tomato paste are low, and producers are worried.
As the climate changes and droughts become more frequent, tomato farmers are looking at a variety of ways to improve the characteristics of commercial tomatoes so that they can thrive in future conditions. In the article, Time describes how AI could be used to select varieties that are best suited to the future climate and speed up the process of producing new hybrids. This is different than creating Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) because it uses the natural process of crossbreeding to speed up the selection of the most suitable new varieties for future production. You can read more at https://time.com/6283762/climate-change-tomatoes-ketchup-ai/.
Image: Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata
