Are avocados toast? California farmers bet on what we'll be eating in 2050

For farmers planting crops they hope will bear fruit in 25 years – including avocado trees – climate change must be reckoned with now

Chris Sayer pushed his way through avocado branches and grasped a denuded limb. It was stained black, as if someone had ladled tar over its bark. In February, the temperature had dropped below freezing for three hours, killing the limb. The thick leaves had shriveled and fallen away, exposing the green avocados, which then burned in the sun. Sayer estimated he’d lost one out of every 20 avocados on his farm in Ventura, just 50 miles north of Los Angeles, but he counts himself lucky.

The trees are totally confused

They would grow in any postapocalyptic hellscape you could imagine

Smoothies, toast, ice cream, you name it – that consumption has increased sevenfold since 2000

It looked like someone had irradiated the place with toxic chemicals

Better soil is going to put us in a better position

Agriculture can play a huge role in stopping, slowing down, maybe even reversing climate change