- Breeding maize for high yields limits its plasticity.
- “The rich ate fine, floured wheat bread. But if you were poor you cut your teeth on rye and black bread.”
- USA, MLS and ITPGRFA.
- Rethinking conservation. Again.
- Content-free article on growing rice in slightly salty water.
- BBC catches up with coffee rust.
- Making animal feed sustainable. Easier said than done.
USA, MLS and ITPGRFA “…will be adding 500,000 samples of 15,000 varieties of plant genetic material for food and agriculture (PGRFA) into the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing (MLS) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, thus allowing other member countries access to new material”. This is odd. USDA samples have always been available to anyone, nothing to do with membership of the Treaty (just as the USA could get samples from the Treaty – notably from the CGIAR genebanks and breeders before the USA became a Treaty member. The question is – what be the terms of access to US plant breeders? Will the US ask their national plant breeders public and private to accept an SMTA that if they patent anything they will pay FAO? Can’t see that happening.