Speaking of meetings…
The National Genetic Resources Advisory Council (NGRAC), a sub-committee of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics (NAREEE) Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is holding a meeting November 9-10, 2015, in Baton Rouge, LA. The meeting will focus on the conservation and utilization of livestock, aquatic and honeybee genetics; a discussion on genetic diversity and genetic vulnerability; and cross cutting issues related to genetic resources and Tribes.
All NGRAC meetings are open to the public, and Matthew Dillon of Seed Matters, who is a “general public member” according to the NGRAC website, has been posting about it all over social media. There is, for example, a photograph of bee insemination that those of our readers who are on Facebook might find irresistible. I for one found this Instagram offering interesting:
I wish I’d been there to fight the corner of “number of varieties” as a way of measuring genetic diversity and vulnerability. Problematic, sure, but useless? That seems harsh. If nothing else, the hunt for lost (or maybe lost) heirloom varieties has great resonance with the public.