It Could Happen Here - Breadfruit!

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

Carlos talks about how breadfruit is being used as a tool of emergency preparedness andto fight hunger crises around the world. Sources: https://es.mongabay.com/2023/08/arbol-del-pan-conservacion-crisis-climatica/ https://www.wired.com/story/breadfruit-caribbean-pacific-climate-change-super-food/ https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000062 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/is-breadfruit-the-climate-change-proof-food-of-the-future-180980665/ https://thestoryexchange.org/shes-brought-a-climate-resilient-superfood-to-the-worlds-attention/ https://ntbg.org/breadfruit/about-breadfruit/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/09/supply-and-demand-concerns-breadfruit/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/09/ulu-on-the-up-hawaii-breadfruit-production-keeps-booming/ https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/09/supply-and-demand-concerns-breadfruit/ https://www.9millones.com/story/como-los-puertorriquenos-disenan-su-recuperacion-justa-colectivamente https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/18/climate-change-impact-on-food-everyone-giving-up-breakfast/ https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/08/climate-resilient-breadfruit-might-be-the-food-of-the-future https://www.plateapr.com/que-hacer/origen-festival-de-la-pana-humacao https://www.eater.com/23664880/what-is-breadfruit-hawaii-how-to-cook https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/12/climate/3-degrees-warming-reports-iea-united-nations  https://bittmanproject.com/breadfruit-is-delicious-and-versatile-but-it-shouldnt-have-to-save-the-world/ https://www3.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/FN-68.pdf https://estadisticas.pr/Agriculturahttps://ishs.org/ishs-article/1128_8/ Breadfruit: Three Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree by Russell Fielding Recetario de Pana Edición 2014 by Asociación Recreativa y Educativa Comunal del Bo.Mariana, Inc (ARECMA), edited by Luz A. Vega Rodríguez https://treesthatfeed.org/programs/planting-trees/ https://treesthatfeed.org/programs/school-feeding-programs/ https://treesthatfeed.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/AR_2026_.3.6MB.pdf See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hi, everyone. You're listening to It Could Happen here. My name's Carlos Berrios Polanco, and today I'm going to be talking about breadfruit, the climate change resistant crop, that also works as a tool for emergency preparedness. But before I get into that, let me tell you why I started thinking about breadfruit in the first place.

If you're anything like me, the effects of human-caused climate change on the food that we eat and grow have been on your mind lately. Maybe you've been thinking about it because you saw a scary-looking graph that shows the global temperature shooting up over the last few years and only increasing over the next couple of decades. When this type of graph comes up in an article about food, it's usually accompanied by a rice or cornfield so dry that the ground is cracked to show how bad it's gotten, and how much worse it can get. Or maybe you're thinking about it because the price of foods that have become staples in your diet, like rice, chicken, and coffee have gone up significantly year over year because of a mixture of different climate-related causes,

has caused crop losses all over the world, and for the very process of planting and harvesting to become more expensive, a process known as quote-unquote climate inflation. And in the case of more specialty foods like Floral, Florida oranges, for example, maybe they're not even available at the grocery store anymore because of how hard crops have been hit by extreme weather events and illness. To be clear, climate change isn't the only reason that food prices have gone up lately. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz because of the U.S.'s war on Iran has also certainly led to prices going up for everything across the

board. But climate change is the main thing that has been and will continue to affect the way that we consume food into the future, especially as resources become scarcer, and we as a planet start realizing that what once worked to feed us isn't going to be viable forever. A study by the Climate Impact Lab found that every additional degree Celsius of global warming will lead to global production of six stable crops, corn, soybean, rice, wheat, cassava, and sorghum to decrease by 4.4%, which is roughly equivalent to a loss of 120 calories per person per day. As Solomon Cheyenne, one of the senior offers of this study and a professor of environmental sciences at Stanford Doher School of Sustainability,

told the UK Telegraph, quote, if climate warms by three degrees, that's basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast, end quote. This is pretty bad already, but it's going to affect the people, already suffering from food insecurity the worst. And that's not to say that we're not growing enough food, just that it's not being distributed to the people who need it most. Three degrees of warming would also cause cataclysmic ecological effects for millions of people around the world to include cities submerged by rising sea levels,

months-long deadly heat waves, and turn people into refugees by the millions. the regions most affected by climate change right now, like Africa, Southern Asia and the Caribbean, would be the most affected by this. So I've really been thinking a lot about that lately, and I did what I always do whenever I start to think about collapse and cataclysm like that. I look for the ways that people around me are trying to deal with the effects of climate change in the best way that they can.

That's why, on a recent Friday morning, I found myself about an hour or one, from my hometown of Kagwas in a tiny little neighborhood called Mariana that's nestled into the mountains of the municipal borderline between Yabucoa and Umakau. As I made my way for the labyrinth-like roads up to the mountain that definitely were not made to fit two cars side by side, I knew that I was getting close because I started seeing nearly 100-foot-treeze trees reaching towards the heavens. I was there in late September right at the tail end of the breadfruit's harvest season. So the bright yellow-green football-sized fruits weren't as plentiful as they would be if I had come earlier in the month. If you've never seen a breadfruit or never tasted one, you should probably fix that as

soon as you can. It's delicious. Breadfruit trees can grow up to 100 feet tall and are covered in large green leaves. The fruit itself can grow to be almost 15 pounds, but usually tops out at about 6 to 10 pounds. Per the Breadfruit Institute in Hawaii, it's an energy-rich food and a good source of complex carbs, fiber, and minerals like potassium and calcium, as well as vitamin B and others. Although some varieties grow with seeds, in my experience, the majority don't. Therefore, about 90% of the time, you're more likely to see breadfruit propagated through root cuttings or tissue cultures or something like that, rather than from seed. Breadfruit trees grow extremely quickly, like up to four feet per year, and will begin producing fruit in about three years.

and it produces a lot of fruit, like between 100 or 200 individual fruits per tree, although some trees could blow past that. Harvest season depends on where these trees are grown, but it's generally late summer to fall, usually. The tree itself doesn't need too much care or perfect growing conditions, far from it, actually. As long as you can provide it with medium amounts of water and deep, fertile and well-draining soils, it'll grow for you.

and even then some varieties grow in atolls that are shallow and sandy, according to the Breadfruit Institute. And it'll also grow on hillsides. That's why it's often touted as a quote-unquote climate resilient tree, because it'll grow in a bunch of different conditions. It's really the goat of trees as to what the fruit tastes like. Well, it's in the name. When cooked, it tastes like bread, although I've read some people can describe it as kind of like a starchy and nutty potato. It can be used in a million different recipes and used in all states of ripeness, from completely raw to overripe.

Personally, my favorite way to eat it is cooked into tostones, which are these kind of twice-fried flattened fritters that are usually made from plantain, but I prefer when they're made out of breadfruit. I've been to Mariana before about three years ago to work on a story about how communities affected by the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017 and Hurricane Fiona in 2022, were designing their just recovery through bottom-up methods, like a community aqueduct to help ale in neighborhoods decades-long water issues, as well as a community census, to know who is the most vulnerable in case of an emergency, and make sure they got help first. And in a sense,

I was back there to cover essentially the same thing, except that this time it was community preparedness through a breadfruit farm that they've planted at La Loma de la Nina Mariana, a kind of Community Park slash rec space. It's a really serene space, especially when it's empty. It's surrounded by breadfruit and other trees, so there's a lot of green, and the breeze is a welcoming reprieve from the near triple-digit temperatures we've been having lately. Mariana is the neighborhood that grows the most breadfruit in Omaha, Rosalina Abra, tells me. She's a community leader who's part of the neighborhood's nonprofit organization, Aerekma, which is in charge of community participation and development. As a quick note, I interviewed Rosalina in our native Spanish, but Mia from the Cool Zone team was gracious enough to read a translation of that interview here and in following sections.

It's a tree with a strong root. It's resistant to hurricanes and any environmental changes. And a mature tree can yield a harvest of between 100 and 300 to 400 bread fruits. Therefore, the harvest is fruitful and abundant. Breadfruit has a long history here. Rosalina tells me that her family has always had a breadfruit tree or a couple growing near them going back generations. Because of how much food it produces and because when you preserve it, it can last months with proper refrigeration. In Puerto Rico, it was originally used as sustants for pigs and other livestock, but little by little, people started paying attention to how good the fruit was.

how many nutrients have provided, and people started using it for everything. Mariana has been hosting a breadfruit festival between the end of August and the start of September amid the peak breadfruit harvest for 38 years. The community has also created a breadfruit recipe book that I'm flipping through as I read this script, and it has dozens and dozens of different things you make with it from fritters, to flan, and even juice. When Hurricane Maria, a category four hurricane tore through Puerto Rico in 2017, leaving thousands of people dead and causing more than $91 billion in damages, Mariana was left more or less incommunicated from the rest of the world. Rosalina told me years ago that it was like a bomb had been dropped in their neighborhood. But knowing that the government wasn't coming to help their small rural community, they knew that the only people they could count on

or themselves. So they got to work and opened a food distribution center at La Loma where they were feeding members of the community with whatever food they had on hand and whatever food they could gather from the hundreds of breadfruit trees

and others in the neighborhood. We've seen that when the need arises, people come here to look for breadfruit. And not only that, but the environment is full of trees that keep us cool that provide a natural space for growth. And eventually we know that we are going to be one of the neighborhoods best prepared for any situation

that involves a food shortage. We're going to have breadfruit to share and to use. In fact, we have a kitchen here, a semi-industrial kitchen that opens to feed the neighborhood. During the time of Maria, we served 400 people daily that came looking for food here. We already have the kitchen, we have the trees planted. So we're already a step ahead for the survival of our people if an event occurs. Neighbors in Mariana have planted about 80 breadfruit trees throughout La Loma as a kind of disaster insurance policy. There is probably not a fruit tree that can really withstand a hurricane or severe flooding or something like that, but if a breadfruit tree goes down, it'll likely start to spring back up from the roots.

Of the four people that I interviewed for this episode, all of them told me something similar. And if a breadfruit tree gets stripped of its leaves and its fruits by a storm, it'll probably start sprouting leaves a few weeks after and will probably produce breadfruit next harvest season. Something similar, although to a lower degree, happened when Hurricane Fiona hit in 2022. Rosalina explained to me that in the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. government tried to take down breadst fruit trees to grow potatoes, but they didn't take away the roots, so it just sprang back up again. She also says that Puerto Rico's farmers took the tree up into the mountains. It usually grows closer to the beach and other places, where it has thrived ever since.

It looks like a Christmas tree with its bulbs because each branch has two or three breadfruit. And when they're ripe, when it's harvest time, you look at it, and it's really miraculous. Plus, it provides food, provides shade, it's resistant to the soil, meaning you can plant it in areas prone to landslides, and it will preserve the terrain so there's no collapses or landslides. So, for many reasons, it's a tree we could consider miraculous. Breadfruit is one of the first crops to grow back in Puerto Rico after an extreme weather event. It also grows pretty much everywhere throughout the archipelago. And this is super important because Puerto Rico is one of the countries most affected by climate change,

ranking six on German Watch's Climate Risk Index, which looks at how countries are affected by extreme weather events and how they cause loss of life and how it impacts their GDP. Puerto Rico has experienced several disasters caused by extreme weather over the years, the biggest of which were hurricanes Irma and Maria and Fiona, Maria caused a loss of around 80% of the archipelago's crops or about $800 million worth of food, according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, Fiona caused about 159 million in losses for the agricultural industry per the AP. Breadfruit has proven to be drought resistant.

It's wind resistant after Hurricane Maria. We were eating breadfruit first, and we were eating local bananas and local plantings. because they were highly affected by the winds, but they would come back. So it's very interesting how even if the fruits are smaller, it will bear fruit, especially in a drought season. That's Marisol Villalobos, a co-founder of Amazar, a company that sells breadfruit flour that's shelf-stable and can last years with no problems. Their farms in Hayuya, and in 2017, her and her husband, who's also a co-founder, had planted about two acres of their farm with breadfruit, but the saplings were little tiny sticks when Maria hit and only one survived. Marisol now calls it the quote-unquote matriarch tree. Nearly 10 years after that, their farm now has

500 breadfruit trees that are producing hundreds and hundreds of pounds of breadfruit that they turn into flour every year. They're one of the first farms in Puerto Rico to grow breadfruit and cocoa at the same time. The breadfruit trees provide the necessary shade for cocoaa to grow. They've also planted several other native trees throughout their farms. If you wanted to produce breadfruit at an industrial scale, this probably isn't the best way to go. Most industrial agriculture has one singular crop planted over large swathes of land to maximize production, ease of gathering, and resources. This is called monoculture. However, there's serious downsides to it, like needing to pump tons of fertilizer and compost into the soil to keep it growing the same thing over and over again,

as well as increasing the risk that a pest or illness will wreck havoc throughout the crop. The way Marisol grows breadfruit is an ideal if they wanted to maximize production, but Marisol isn't really bothered by it. Instead, she thinks it's better that way because of its positive effects on the soil and on the plants. Some people say, no, it might not be the best synergy. I see it in a way, you know, I'm enriching my model of agroforestry. And what we produce is what we produce. But if I have a more secure crop in terms of resilience and protection from sicknesses,

illnesses and plates, I'm very happy with that. Puerto Rico grows very little of its own food, about 10 to 15 percent depending on the source that you look at. While breadfruit has been part of Puerto Rican's diets for centuries, production of it has been going down over the last few years as Puerto Rico becomes even more reliant on imports. Per data from the archipelago's Department of Agriculture, production of breadfruit has gone down from 1991 to 2019, the last year for which public data is available by about 771,000 pounds. Only about 650,000 pounds of breadfruit were produced in Puerto Rico in 2019, according to the data. Meanwhile, imports have risen rapidly from 2015 to 2019, reaching about 830,000 pounds of

breadfruit imported in 2019. So people are still eating breadfruit. They're eating more of it, but we just can't grow it fast enough. So we definitely have a great opportunity in Puerto Rico to increase local production and local consumption with a crop like breadfruit and especially incorporating other crops. beans, vegetables, a lot of farinos, tarot, plants, all that, yeah. And even animals, you know, nice farms that have both things, silver pasture with trees and with the animals. And then we have a little bit more protein there too.

When we get back from the ad break, we're going to be talking about the history of breadfruit's voyage from the Pacific to the Caribbean and the rest of the world and how breadfruit is being distributed to help combat hunger crises, everywhere. The music you love. Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts everyone's talking about.

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Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. You're listening to It Could Happen here. I'm Carlos, your host for today's episode. And while breadfruit has become a staple in the Caribbean because of how easily it grows and its ability to be turned into a gazillion different things, it's not native here. Instead, it's originally from the Western Pacific, specifically from New Guinea and the Indo-Malais region. Thousands of years ago, it was spread by the indigenous Polynesian, who were the literal first people to travel across the region. They would travel on double-hulled canoes

that are nothing like what we know of as canoes today. Instead, each hole could reach up to 100 feet in length. They had a sail, and they could fit entire families as well as the food and resources they needed to settle on the islands they were traveling to. And one of the things they carried were breadfruit saplings because of how much fruit it would produce when planted.

In the case of breadfruit, it was usually the, the little saplings that shoot up from the roots, they would cut them and pack them in a ball of earth and leaves and keep them moist so that they could plant them on the New Island and have the same familiar foods that they were used to wherever they were coming from. That's Russell Fielding, an associate professor at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina who researches geography and environmental justice and who wrote the book, Breadfruit Free Global Journeys of a Bountiful Tree. He explained that one of the Pacific people's earliest uses for breadfruit was roasting it in an earth oven, which is when you create a pit, put burning coals in there, then the fruit, then more coals on top, and then you cover it all with stones in soil. This type of cooking is common to a bunch of indigenous cultures across the world, and it produces delicious food.

Another way that the people of the Pacific used breadfruit that Russell's never seen outside of the region is putting it into a dark pit, making sure there's no airflow and then letting it ferment. This turns it into a sort of paste that can be stored for a long time. It tastes kind of tart, almost like citrus. Russell told me, its name depends on which Pacific Island you're on, but the people of the Marquesas call it ma. And so this fermented breadfruit was used as kind of an insurance against times of scarcity, where, you know, if you get a big crop of breadfruit, like you said,

a single tree and a single season produces lots of fruit. So if it's more than you need for the time being, you can ferment some of it to store it away for later. And then maybe there's a drought or a famine at some point, and you have to dip into your reserves. This shows that the history of breadfruit is an emergency preparedness tool goes back millennia. People and the breadfruit they carried

continued spreading across the Pacific. When the Europeans colonize the region, they essentially forced the people to switch from breadfruit to imports from the globalized market. Crops like coffee, pineapples, and sugar overtook the breadfruit groves in taro patches, while rice became a staple of the Pacific diet, according to Russell's book. It's a story anyone familiar with colonization or who's been a victim of it knows all too well. However, breadfruit has seen a resurgence in recent times. In Hawaii, according to an article in Civil Beat,

breadfruit production is booming, but similar to Puerto Rico, farmers can't keep up with demand. We'll get back to the modern-day breadfruit situation in a second. But before that, let's talk about how breadfruit made its way all the way from the Pacific to the Caribbean. It wasn't until the very end of the 18th century that breadfruit made its jump to the Caribbean. And this was intentional. This was directed by the European colonialists. It was the British that eventually succeeded, but they weren't the only ones trying. The French had also made efforts to bring breadfruit to the Caribbean.

And there's some hypothesis that the Spanish were also moving breadfruit around the same time. But the British did it first. You might have heard this story before. The story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. Every time I mentioned to someone that I was working on this breadfruit project, they would mention the original 1945 movie, the Mutiny on the Bounty or the 1962 remake with Marble and Brampton. to me. And I would be like, yeah, for sure. But let me be honest with you, dear listener.

I did not know that these movies existed up until a couple of weeks before recording this episode. And to be honest, they're pretty good. 3.5 stars on Letterboxed. Anyway, as European colonization wrecked terror and death throughout the Caribbean, the British came up with a plan to transport breadfruit from their Pacific colonies to their Caribbean colonies, all of which had more or less the same climate. to feed the enslaved people that they had kidnapped from Africa and forced to work on sugar plantations. So, the British assigned William Bly to the HMS bounty,

and they traveled to Tahiti to load upon breadfruit. Bly, as a forotarians commonly do, was quick to anger and routinely verbally berated and physically assaulted his crew, who eventually mutinied and sent Bly and his loyalist packing. However, Bly eventually made his way back to England, where he would once again make his way back to Tahiti and eventually reach his original goal of bringing breadfruit to the Caribbean. He first stopped in St. Vincent in 1793, then Jamaica shortly after.

Then breadfruit was all over the Caribbean in a few short years, even reaching the state of Florida a few decades later, where it's still really the only place in the continental U.S. where it can grow outside without too much trouble. although it really only mostly grows in the keys and the warmest parts of South Florida because it's super susceptible to a cold snap. It was specifically intended to feed people that were enslaved on sugar plantations or otherwise impoverished. I know that not every island was practicing slavery at the time that breadfruit was imported to that island,

but breadfruit was never really intended as a food for everyone. for the poor and the enslaved. And unfortunately, that gave breadfruit something of a stigma or a negative reputation in a lot of places throughout the Caribbean. And you can even still find traces of that today, where it's referred to as, you know,

poor man's food or comida ybarro, where it's still got that association today with poverty. Russell explained that while slavery was still going on, people that were able to eat something else absolutely refused to eat breadfruit. That's how hated

was, and who could really blame them? This reputation as a food for enslaved people or something that only people in poverty ate stuck around for decades, and one could make the argument that some of that sentiment still lingers today. Even if Breadfruit's reputation has started to turn around, so much of that evil history of colonialism in slavery is inescapable. Even now, as I read this script, I think about how the communities where this fruit grows the most are some of the ones most affected by human-caused climate change, which they contribute the least to. The Caribbean historically accounts for less than 1% of the world's global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the emissions database for global atmospheric research.

Theoretically, there could come a day when breadfruit is not as bountiful as it once was because of the heat or even refuse to grow altogether. Even though breadfruit is certainly climate resilient and it can take a lot, it can't survive without soil and water, both of which are becoming harder and harder to come by day by day. The Global South, a lot of which relies on breadfruit as part of their diet, will no longer be able to grow this bountiful tree if we reach certain levels of warming. As the hottest year on record, morphs into the hottest year so far, the Global North will likely get to experience breadfruit for the first time as areas that were once hostile to breadfruit, become its new home.

This seems to already be happening in the Marshall Islands, another place that is very, very, very affected by climate change, as in they're literally disappearing before our eyes. Their breadfruit, which they call Ulu, similar to other places in the Pacific, has seen better days. They're growing smaller and less bountiful, according to one farmer, the Civil Beat interviewed. He thinks it's salt, getting into the soil or the aquifer, while breadfruit can resist some salt, the constant presence is killer.

Perra study published in Pellas climate about how breadfruit can contribute to climate resilient food systems in areas near the equator, the area suitable for breadfruit cultivation in the tropics and subtropics is projected to decrease by 4.4% in a scenario where we stabilize emissions, a.k.a. where emission levels go down but do not reach net zero by the year 2100, and they'll decrease by about 4.5% in a high emission scenario, which essentially means if we burn even more fossil fuels by 2100. In these scenarios, the areas most affected will be Latin America and the Caribbean, where a suitable range for breadfruit growth will decrease by 10.1% if we stabilize emissions, and 11.5% in a high-emission scenario. Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia and the Pacific yield quality and consistency

show minimal decreases under a high-emission scenario, while the land where you can plant breadfruit will likely go up. In all regions, a high-emission scenario will lead to reduce consistency and quality of breadfruit harvest. The narrative of the study ends by saying that breadfruit may play a role in alleviating current and future food insecurity, particularly in equatorial Africa. When instituted with an agroforestry model, as Marisol is doing, it could be a potent climate adaptation strategy. This study also mentions that its role can be expanded in countries that already produce it to become even more of a staple and help address growing climate-related issues there.

Ironically, tropical regions are where you do find some of the world's, underserved people, people with hunger and mannutrition as part of their risks of daily living. So the kinds of tree that we plant and the need are very well matched. That was Mike McLaughlin, co-founder and secretary of the Trees That Feed Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit whose mission is to feed people, create jobs, and benefit the environment. Mike and his wife, Mary, who's president of trees that feed, grew up in Jamaica where breadfruit is incredibly common. However, they didn't think of planting it until years later when they realized how badly climate change was affecting the environment as well as the problems it was causing around the world. And then they started thinking about what they could do about it.

And the reason we wanted to plant fruit trees, it was kind of an easier cell. there were and there still are climate change skeptics, people that don't think anything is happening, they're not worried about super el-Nino, they're not doing anything to reduce our fossil fuel use, our carbon footprint. And so because of the skeptics, we said if we lead our effort with climate change and solving that problem, we kind of have to do more explaining. We're going to and being more skeptics. But if we say we're planting trees to feed people, everybody understands that. They know that. Trees that feed gives breadfruit and other trees to farmers in more than 20 countries, then teaches them how to take care of them, harvest the breadfruit, and process it,

so that it can be sold and used to feed their families. Part of the reason they have this emphasis with farmers is that it reduces reliance on imported food, which means that it means that. means that more money circulates in the local economy instead of going elsewhere. The organization also buys breadfruit flour and other breadfruit-based products from processors and bakeries, then donates them to schools as part of their school feeding program, which serves more than 20 schools and orphanages in Haiti, which is the second country that they started working with, Mike explained. 5.8 million Haitians, a little more than half of the country's total population

face crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, according to the United Nations World Food Program. More than 250,000 children aged 6 to 59 months are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition between June 26 and May 27, for a UN analysis. Some people in Haiti are forced to eat mud cookies, which are exactly what they sound like, a little bit of earth, salt, and oil that's meant to curb hunger pangs. It's the saddest thing Mike's ever heard of, he told me. Trees that feed Foundation have tried to substitute that where they can with Kanpare, a type of bread that's dense like cake or a breadfruit porridge.

These recipes were co-produced with bakers in Haiti and North America, according to the organization's website. Part of the trouble of growing so much breadfruit is that it ripens really quickly, like within a couple of days, it might start rotting if you don't refrigerate it. So to combat that, Mike helped create a solar dehydrator that can dehydrate breadfruit so that it can be stored without refrigeration, without affecting the nutritional benefits of the food. This means that it can be stored for up to several years and still maintain the same nutritional value. What trees that feed is doing, using breadfruit as a tool for sustainable development, is part of its history all along. Russell, who's also a board member of the organization, told me during our interview.

When indigenous communities were carrying it across the Pacific, they were hoping to feed themselves wherever they settled. Although it was a weapon in service of the evils of slavery, the British brought breadfruit to the Caribbean to provide food when it became scarce, in large part because of their own actions planting monoculture sugar plantations everywhere, to be clear. Meanwhile, in modern times, it continues spreading. across the world is an attempt to feed people suffering through hunger because of climate change and other crises. It's time to further ads, but when we come back, we'll wrap this episode up by talking about how the real power of breadfruit might have been the friends that we made along

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Or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to It Could Happen here. I'm your host for today, Carlos. And one thing I haven't mentioned yet is about what we call breadfruit in Spanish. It has a bunch of names, depending on where you are. Panabang, frutipang, masapang, buempan. You get the idea.

They're all bread-related. However, what I and millions of other Puerto Ricans call it is Bana, which is exactly the same way that we refer to a close friend. A direct translation would be something like buddy or homie. So every breadfruit is a friend. this fruit that grows quickly and produces hundreds of pounds of food from a single tree that has accompanied people into the unknown and been turned from a weapon that sustained humanity's greatest evil into a food that now helps sustain millions and millions of people every day

that has started sprouting weeks after disaster raised every other crop that will grow tall and wild without much help and almost always has something to give is literally named friend. That's the kind of beautiful and surreal that only real life could ever be. Marisol from Amazar has a theory about why it's called Pana that I think is worth sharing.

We and Amazar have a theory that it has to do that. You know, we have a very strong relationship in Puerto Rico with our godfathers and comadre is that relationship of the parents of the godchild with the godfather and godmother of that child. So if I were to visit in the 1800s

and we were very, very, very poor, extremely poor and a lot of malnutrition, if I were to visit a friend, I would bring a pana with me. And here's a pana, here's a pana, that connotation of, I'm giving you something to help nurture your family. So that's something very special.

So if you're really my pana, you're dear to me, I will protect you. I will take care of you. And I will have your back. I want to end this episode by returning back to La Loma of La Nina Maria. After my interview with Rosalina, when I was on my way out, I stopped to take a photo of a mosaic made with hundreds of little pieces of colorful tiles. It depicts about a dozen hands together in a circle,

like they're about to go a three-two-one go team. There's a breadfruit at the center of the circle, almost as if it's the thing they've put their whole faith in. But the inscription under the mosaic, glory to the hands that work, makes it clear that even though breadfruit might be at the center of this art and one of the most important things in this community, the real greatest thing that this neighborhood has are its people, the ones that are putting in the work when it's needed,

the ones that are making sure to help their neighbors when they need help, the ones that are using all this breadfruit and have used it to cook for years, and years whenever there's a crisis. It can't happen without them. Breadfruit might grow super quickly. It might be incredibly abundant as a source of food. But it can't be used to feed people without the community putting in the work to gather it, cook it, store it, and then bring it back out when it's needed. Because to us, if we've done anything, it's that we've seated solidarity.

I mean, whenever a situation happens here, people show up and immediately ask, how can I help, what can I do? Where can I pitch in? People get here hauling water with whatever they have at home, cans of beans, rice. Look, I have this, you can start cooking. People say, I can get to such and such place because I have the right equipment. What can I do? We have that in abundance.

This community's greatest resource is its people. We've always said so. We might not have the vast financial resources, but we do have the people. And that is the primary resource we work with and the people to whom we owe everything we have here. I've been thinking about that mosaic pretty much every day since I was at La Loma. While breadfruit is at the center, it's the people that are putting in the work who are actually able to help one another by using breadfruit. It's a powerful reminder that the only way out of a crisis is through, that the only way through is together.

Thanks for listening. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Didn't catch the latest world.

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