Crop yields expand, nutrients decline.

• Author: Herro, Alana
• Position: EYE ON EARTH - Brief article

Farmers today can grow two to three times as much grain, fruit, and vegetables on a plot of land as they could 50 years ago, but the nutritional quality of many crops has declined, according to a new report from The Organic Center, a group based in Boulder, Colorado.

In Still No Free Lunch, report author and Worldwatch Institute food expert Brian Halweil notes that today's food contains 10 to 25 percent less iron, zinc, protein, calcium, vitamin C, and other nutrients than it did historically. Researchers from Washington State University who analyzed 63 spring wheat cultivars grown between 1842 and 2003 found an 11 percent decline in iron content, a 16 percent decline in copper, a 25 percent decline in zinc, and a 50 percent decline in selenium.

"Less nutrient-dense foods, coupled with poor food choices, go a long way toward explaining today's epidemics of obesity and diabetes," says The Organic Center's chief scientist, Charles Benbrook.

Plants cultivated to produce higher yields tend to have less energy for...