There are no opportunity crops

At least, not in any biological sense.

No plant is born an “opportunity crop.” It becomes one when somebody finds a way to make its particular combination of characteristics valuable, in a particular context.

That does not make the term useless. It can be a convenient way to describe crops whose potential seems underdeveloped, or whose qualities come to matter more under changing climates, diets and markets. But the phrase can also mislead. It can make opportunity sound like something that resides in a species or variety.

But consider the Georgia peach. Today, the US state of Georgia is almost synonymous with peaches, at least to Americans. But it was not always so. The fruit arrived in North America with the Spanish in the mid-1500s¹, spreading rapidly through the Southeast from seed, almost weed-like. For generations, peaches were mostly a local resource, made into pies, fed to livestock or turned into brandy.

As William Thomas Okie recounts in Smithsonian Magazine, it took deliberate selection and breeding, better production practices, research, transport and access to distant markets to turn the peach into a commercial industry — and eventually the icon it is today.

The lesson is not that peaches are in any way special. It’s almost the opposite.

When we talk about “opportunity crops” in the Global South, we often seem to be looking for crops that already possess a particular combination of characteristics: nutritious, climate resilient, locally adapted, culturally valued and perhaps capable of generating income.
But why should opportunity be an intrinsic property of a crop?

All crops contain genetic variation. Some of that variation may become valuable because of a new breeding objective, a new processing technology, a change in consumer preferences, a new market or simply changing environmental conditions.

We cannot know all of those opportunities in advance. Nobody knew in advance that the peach presented an opportunity in the American South.

The Georgia peach story also reminds us that an opportunity is not necessarily an opportunity for all. That industry developed within a society shaped by slavery and racial inequality, and its commercial success depended on agricultural labourers who didn’t much share in the value they helped create. If a neglected African crop becomes commercially valuable, who controls the breeding, seed, processing and markets. Who gets paid?

This does not mean that every crop deserves the same investment. Resources are limited, and choices have to be made. But it does suggest that the most useful question may not be “Which crops are opportunity crops?” but rather “Where is there diversity from which new opportunities could be created?”

This is why genebanks matter. They preserve options, not predictions. A crop or variety that looks unremarkable today may contain a characteristic that becomes valuable tomorrow.

Perhaps, then, we should stop thinking of opportunity crops as a special category of crops, waiting to be discovered. The real opportunity lies in maintaining enough diversity of all crops that we retain the ability to seize the chance when the need arises.