Author: Jeremy Cherfas

Posted on

Happy International Day for Biodiversity

Yup, it’s the day we wait for each year. The day that the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has set aside to celebrate. And this year, it’s all about Biodiversity and Climate Change. Yay! We learn that an increase of only 2.5 degrees C will mean “50 million more people facing hunger” and that “conserving certain species such as mangroves and drought resistant crops can reduce the disastrous impacts of climate change effects such as flooding and famine”.

If you were looking for more on biodiversity and agriculture, look no further. Our friend Andy Jarvis, along with colleagues Annie Lane and Robert Hijmans, has published a paper looking at how climate change will affect the survival of crop wild relatives in three species: peanut, cowpea and potato. There’s a press release here (and coverage in Reuters). Bottom line: things don’t look good.

Climate change affects agriculture from at least two directions. It will require diversity as a sources of traits to cope with the effects, by breeding new varieties. And yet it threatens that very diversity with extinction, especially when, like the peanut, you can move your seeds less than a metre each year in search of more suitable growing conditions.

Two solutions present themselves, which is a nice symmetry. Try to ensure that natural conservation efforts in parks and the like are designed with wild relatives in mind, giving slow-coaches like the peanut a helping hand if necessary. And collect more samples of agricultural biodiversity from the wild and from farmers’ fields to store in genebanks. Alas, this latter option has become more and more difficult as countries increasingly fear the rip-off tactics of bio-pirates. And who’s to blame for that? Step forward the CBD.

It’s an ironic world, eh?

Posted on

Orange bananas

Over at Bioversity International’s news pages there’s an interview with West African scientists who are trying to develop orange-fleshed bananas to tackle vitamin A deficiency.

LATER: The Bioversity link has disappeared, but I’ve replaced it with one from New Agriculturist that’s much the same.

Posted on

Bunfight to feed Africa

The African Green Revolution conference will be held in Oslo from 29 August to 1 September. The Can Africa Feed Itself? conference will be held Oslo from 6 June to 8 June. What a shame there is no overlap; so neither side is likely to hear directly what the other is saying. Which would I rather be at?

At one:

As a conference participant, you can expect an environment of cross-disciplinary dialogue with abundant opportunity for personal interaction with colleagues and participants.

At the other:

There are different views among the speakers and the organizers of the conference on many of the issues approached. Exciting discussions will take place.

Tough call. Really. If you’re going to either — and especially if you’re going to both — we’d love to hear your impressions.

Posted on

Globalization and parasite diversity

Toxoplasma Gondii Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan ((From H. Michael Kubisch. Photograph shows toxoplasma dividing into daughter cells. Image provided by Ke Hu and John Murray. DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.0020020.g001)) that can infect birds and mammals — although it can reproduce sexually only in domestic and wild cats. It has been estimated that about one in three human adults is infected, although the symptoms are usually minor. However, one particularly troublesome aspect of toxoplasma is its ability to cross the placenta from the mother and infect the growing fetus in utero. This can result in serious consequences in newborn children sometimes leading to heart and eye problems.

A recent study in the US has put an interesting spin on the genetic composition of toxoplasma. Toxoplasma DNA obtained from various chicken populations around the globe points to the existence of four major genetic strains, two found only in South America, one in the rest of the world — but not in South America — and a fourth population that seems to be ubiquitous.

The authors speculate that toxoplasma evolved initially in South America and then spread into Eurasia. The two populations were then separate for a long time. How this early migration might have happened is unclear; perhaps the parasite was carried by a bird. However, the spread of the Eurasian population back into North America, as well as the spread of the fourth population around the globe, could have had only one facilitator: us. At first the slave trade with its crammed and unsanitary ships possibly spread the parasite. Later, cargo ships containing agricultural goods might have given toxoplasma a lift to distant shores: in some locations the proportion of recent toxoplasma arrivals appears higher around port cities than further inland.

Yet another example of how human activity can shape evolutionary events, and contribute to diversity, in other species.

Posted on

Stop the mudness

Stop the mudness is the slogan of the Great Lakes Commission sediment-reduction campaign aimed squarely at farmers in North America. It’s the centre of an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun pointing out the many pitfalls associated with farms that grow monocultures of annuals and leave the soil bare most of the year. What’s pleasing is that efforts to reduce soil run-off will always also increase agricultural biodiversity.