- Against the grain? A historical institutional analysis of access governance of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in Ethiopia. Culture, economics and politics.
- Early Pastoral Economies and Herding Transitions in Eastern Eurasia. Everything changed around 1200 BC. Starting in Mongolia.
- Genetic diversity within and between British and Irish breeds: The maternal and paternal history of native ponies. Diversity within breeds being maintained, global haplotypes well represented, but a couple of breeds pretty unique. Long way from Mongolia.
- Diversity buffers winegrowing regions from climate change losses. Gotta change your cultivars.
- Contribution de la biodiversité à l’éco-oenotourisme des vignobles héroïques: atouts et perspectives. You can’t change your cultivars.
- Marker-assisted selection in a global barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare) collection revealed a unique genetic determinant of the naked barley controlled by the nud locus. One genetic variant, from East Asia, makes barley naked.
- Morphological diversity within a core collection of subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum L.): Lessons in pasture adaptation from the wild. The Australian cultivars have similar morphological diversity to the core collection, and several morphological characters are probably adaptive.
- Genome-wide genetic diversity is maintained through decades of soybean breeding in Canada. After an initial decline, though, and there’s more out there.
- Evaluation of genetic diversity, agronomic traits, and anthracnose resistance in the NPGS Sudan Sorghum Core collection. 10% country subset of a 10% core subset of >40,000 accessions contains multiple anthracnose resistance sources, and lots of other diversity.
- Phylogeny and conservation priority assessment of Asian domestic chicken genetic resources. 7 clades, 3 centres of origin, northern Yunnan the highest priority for conservation.
- European and Asian contribution to the genetic diversity of mainland South American chickens. Alas, no evidence of a pre-Columbian Polynesian contribution. Yunnan, that’s another story.
- Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi affect the concentration and distribution of nutrients in the grain differently in barley compared with wheat. Differently as in opposite directions.
- Molecular and Morphological Divergence of Australian Wild Rice. Including a putative new taxon.
Ethiopian ABS. I have some problems with this. Generically, why should Ethiopia and several other countries ratify the ITPGRFA when they have no intention of distributing samples? It makes more sense to stay out.
Specifically, the paper notes: “…restriction as international germplasm access was limited following the CBD ratification…” citing Falcon & Fowler (2002), which contains a major error. Falcon & Fowler (p. 210) claim that CG Centre genebanks: “averaged 9782 acquisitions annually for the five calendar years before the CBD. In 1997, the last year for which data are available, the number of new accessions was only 563.” [The apparent purpose of this claim was to rubbish the CBD and to demonstrate a need for the FAO Seed Treaty]. Yet in their attempt to link the CBD to a dramatic fall in Centre acquisitions, Falcon & Fowler totally misrepresent the facts. The number of new acquisitions in 1997 was 12,756, not 563 (SINGER database – the same as used by Falcon & Fowler). Note that this was actually higher than the average rate for the five years preceding the CBD. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We did not need the ITPGRFA.
The TAC Review of 1972 recommended a series of regional genebanks. The West German Government funded two of these, one in CATIE in Costa Rica and one in Ethiopia, both intended as regional ‘International’ genebanks. However, the concept of internationality was never accepted by Ethiopia: the Mulesa & Westengen paper notes for 1976 the establishment of Ethiopia’s national genebank (PGRC/E) – in fact this was the GTZ project specifically for an international genebank.
There is some paranoia: the Mulesa & Westengen paper cites an anonymous source on the “massive export of germplasm to Germany” with the apparent belief that germplasm was then sent on from Germany to all rich countries. Also sample copies retained in Ethiopia “were all damaged due to improper storage conditions.” I was the GTZ project manager for PGRC/E during this period. There was not a massive export of samples to Germany (unless this was to the communist regime in East Germany – DDR). We were allowed to send out nothing (although this breached the Project Agreement). Also, as soon as possible, we purchased and installed cold stores for sample storage: “all samples” were not damaged. Throughout the period we were planning and commissioning the excellent PGRC/E.
There is some irony in the comment of Pat Mooney: “…overwhelmingly the South was a massive contributor of free germplasm, and … the North was actively using the germplasm to develop new varieties protected by IPR.” That is, Ethiopia was being ripped off. But it wasn’t. The almost absolute failure of the ITPGRFA to generate income by a tax on plant patents illustrates that any ripping-off was puny. RAFI was ‘massively’ meddling in Ethiopian PGR policy. There is further irony in Ethiopia’s position on the table of use of introduced crops – fifth from the bottom of 32 African countries, just above Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger: a self-imposed disaster based on the false belief that local crops do better (much propagated by international NGOs). This is ‘dog in the manger’ policy.