Author: Jeremy Cherfas

Posted on

UK to spend GBP15 million on food security

The UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBRSC: does that name give you any clues about their priorities?) has committed GBP15 million “to establish training for food security research and development”. So, what’s involved?

  • “Transferring the UK’s world-leading bioscience research from the lab bench to the field will underpin this fast-growing sector.”
  • “The AgriSkills Forum recognises the need to address skills in the agri-food sector in a holistic manner and we look forward to working closely with BBSRC to compare notes and ensure that any potential synergies are encouraged to be realised.”
  • “Farming remains at the heart of tackling the challenge of feeding a world of nine billion people by 2050. What the farming industry needs in order to meet this challenge is strong agricultural and horticultural research in the UK. … This BBSRC scheme will help to ensure that research done by highly skilled scientists can benefit farmers by being translated into new technologies, practices and advice they can use on a commercial scale to produce more and impact less.”
  • “We need an increased number of individuals with specific very high level skills if we are to meet the challenge of future food security that has been laid out for us.”

I wonder what they’ll come up with for people who eat food. h/t Charles Spillane.

Posted on

Fertilizers: downside seen in China

It really does seem tragic that people need to make their own mistakes, rather than learn from others’. Latest case in point: soils in China are being destroyed by excessive use of fertilizers, which is making the soils too acid to support plant growth. Yields have already dropped 30-50% in some places. The conclusion that profligate and ignorant use of fertilizers comes from a paper published in Science by F.S. Zhang at China Agricultural University in Beijing and colleagues. That is behind a paywall, but there is a report in Nature News.

“They see the green leaves but they don’t see the impact on the soil. If they have a poor crop they think more fertilizer is needed, making matters worse,” Zhang says. Farmers routinely apply double and sometimes triple the necessary amount, he says. Better education could provide a simple solution to the fertilization problem.

People who promote “more fertilizers” as a panacea should consider that they need to deliver more than merely fertilizers.

Posted on

Nibbles: Farmers’ Rights, Seed Breeder, Genebanks, Pigeon Pea, Cheese

Posted on

Patenting systems good for vegetable diversity

Here’s a turn-up for the books. Our friends at the CAS-IP blog link to a couple of papers that examine the influence of intellectual property rights on vegetable diversity. I’m going to come right out and admit that I haven’t read the papers. But like CAS-IP, I’m intrigued by this quote:

More than 16% of all vegetable varieties that have ever been patented were commercially available in 2004.

Or, to put it another way, less than 84% of all vegetable varieties that have ever been patented were no longer available in 2004.

The primary argument for maintaining crop diversity 1 is based on the need to maintain a safety net of genetic diversity, to have a broad supply of genes available to breeders who can create more productive, weather-hardy, insect resistant, fungus resistant, and better-tasting crops. … If the meaning of diversity is linked to the survival of ancient varieties, then the lessons of the twentieth century are grim. If it refers instead to the multiplicity of present choices available to breeders, then the story is more hopeful.

The crucial part, of course, is how to measure diversity, and how you interpret it. I deliberately snipped out what I consider the money quote from the passage above. Here it is:

We hope our findings stimulate a discussion about the proper measure for that diversity.

Off you go. Discuss away.