Author: Jeremy Cherfas

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Use monoculture to pay for diversity

Palm oil plantations destroy the biodiversity of the forests they replace. But high-falutin’ ideas of paying farmers not to plant oil palms are doomed to failure for two reasons. First, as developing countries rush to point out, Europe and America destroyed their own forests to power their development, so who are they to ask developing countries to forego similar development? Secondly, palm oil is so profitable that very little else is likely to appeal to farmers. Lian Pin Koh and David Wilcove have a nifty idea in a recent Nature. Conservationists should invest in small palm oil plantations and use the profits to buy — and protect — rainforest.

Koh and Wilcove say that a typical mature oil-palm plantation in Malaysia makes an annual net profit of roughly $2,000 per hectare. Existing oil palm-cultivated land sells for about $12,500 per hectare, so the capital investment could be recovered in just 6 years. Thereafter, the profits from a 5,000-hectare oil palm plantation would be about $10 million, which could buy 1,800 hectares of forest each year. The forest would be set aside as private nature reserves. Furthermore, new and more sustainable palm plantations could then be established on degraded land, which is feasible, but currently not as cheap as chopping down forest.

Sounds to me like a plan.

The Nature paper is behind a paywall; more details at Biopact and Mongabay.

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Rusty conclusions about iron deficiency

Iron deficiency anaemia is a big problem. WHO estimates that about 2 billion people — that’s roughly one in three — lack enough iron in the diet. And the consequences are grave for health and the economies of developing countries. So of course people are focused on ways to combat iron deficiency. Two hog the limelight: supplementation by adding iron to the diet and biofortification, breeding to add more iron to the staples that make up the diet. A recent paper in The Lancet reviews the story of iron deficiency and how to treat it. ((Michael B Zimmermann and Richard F Hurrell, Nutritional iron deficiency, The Lancet, 370 (9586), 11 August 2007-17 August 2007, Pp 511-520.)) Perhaps not surprisingly, the study concludes that “targeted iron supplementation, iron fortification of foods, or both, can control iron deficiency in populations”. And yet, having said that “dietary iron bioavailability is low in populations consuming monotonous plant-based diets,” the authors do not appear to have seriously considered the idea of trying to attack that monotony instead. Maybe enriching and diversifying those plant-based diets to include more dark green leafy vegetables and more pulses would be as effective, with additional benefits in other realms. But that kind of intervention isn’t nearly as glamorous, and gets little attention.

Of course, it could be that solving the problem of iron deficiency will just give rise to other difficulties. Another paper suggests that iron deficiency protects us against some of the epidemic contagious diseases that have hitched along as people crowded together in agriculturally-fed cities. ((S Denic and M Agarwal, Nutritional iron deficiency: an evolutionary perspective. Nutrition. 2007, 23:603-14. Epub 2007 Jun 20.)) Maybe iron deficiency — at least in moderation — is a good thing?

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All cows are not equal

Cows produce milk, right? Its qualities vary among breeds, with creamy Jersey milk at one end and that skimmed milk cow at the other. And the quantity varies within a breed, which is how we got to the monster lactation machines that are the modern Friesian. But until this morning I had no idea that there was a distinct difference in the type of milk produced by cows within a breed.

Apparently, the major protein in milk, beta-casein, comes in two different forms, called A1 and A2 (original, huh). Some cows have both forms of casein in their milk, some only A1 and some only A2. (Students of genetics will want to know the ratios. I can’t seem to find them.) The A2 corporation, which has registered and trademarked A2 milkâ„¢, says that the A2 form is the original, and that at some point in the past a mutation produced A1. It also hints strongly that as a result, pure A2 milk is better for you. There seems to be some evidence floating around out there, but none of it is overwhelmingly positive.

Anyway, one can determine which cows produce what milk with a simple DNA test, and this morning’s awakening came from a report about the first dairy farm in the US to separate the milk from its A2 cows. A dairy company in Lincoln, Nebraska has started to market A2 milk in the US. To say they are cagey about the exact health claims they are making for this premium priced product would be the understatement of the week.

“To say there is no controversy over this would not be correct,” said Timothy Thietje, CEO of The Original Foods Company, a Nebraska-based marketer of A2 Milk.

“But to say there’s a substantial body of evidence both in terms of science and the response from people who use the product is correct.”

Right.

All this started in New Zealand and Australia, where the milk is marketed without the approval of the milk boards; what would all those other farmers do? But could this, just possibly, be a case in which reducing diversity might be good for you?

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Australia invests in wheat genes

You can’t keep a good man down. Dr Ken Street, who may or may not be the Indiana Jones of agriculture, has been explaining why Australia’s Grains and Development Corporation (GRDC) has given $5 million to the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Part of GRDC’s contribution is earmarked for Central Asia and the Caucasus, where wheat and other cereals were domesticated and where there are still valuable genetic resources. The Trust will help to conserve material collected in those regions, which Street says has already demonstrated resistance to three different kinds of wheat rust: leaf, yellow and stripe. GRDC is funded by a levy on Australian cereal farmers, and the genetic resources supported by the Trust will be freely available to all researchers. So, as Street neatly sums up: “the benefit to Australia is access to genes that could solve many current production constraints”.