NPR piece on new bean varieties bred to handle climate change

[Sue Sullivan]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/03/25/395096885/meet-the-cool-beans-designed-to-beat-climate-change?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20150325

Sorry about the font size. Can't figure out how to change it.

Mejia-Jimenez was determined to cross-breed two different types of beans that normally are sexually incompatible: the common bean — a species that includes pinto, black and kidney beans — and the tepary bean, a little-known crop traditionally grown by indigenous communities in the American Southwest.

The tepary bean is no longer widely planted. The beans are small, and the plant doesn't produce very many of them.

"As a crop, it doesn't have a great future," says Stephen Beebe, who leads CIAT's bean breeding program. Beebe spoke to us via Skype from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

But this bean does have its defenders. Writer, social scientist and food activist Gary Nabhan has championed it as a vital piece of Southwestern cuisine and culture. (Nabhan wrote his master's thesis on the tepary bean way back in 1978.)

Mejia-Jimenez, meanwhile, was drawn to the small bean's ability to tolerate harsh conditions, such as heat and drought. He wanted to transfer these genetic traits into the common bean.