Author: Jeremy Cherfas

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Build coastal resilience

Deriving food from the coastline is more like hunting than fishing, and a new report from GRID Arendal stresses the need to protect coastal regions and ensure that they maintain the resilience to feed people. The report is available directly from Eldis, which says that “According to the report, the recommendation by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), that 10% of all marine and coastal ecological regions be conserved in MPAs by 2012, will not be met until 2069. MPAs further need to be of a significant size, effectively managed and designed and implemented in such a way to facilitate the conservation of marine biodiversity and the associated ecosystem services, including close regulation of the adjacent land-based activities to reduce pollution.”

GRID Arendal is part of UNEP’s GRID network, specialising in GIS and its uses.

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Certificates of Origin

One way in which agricultural biodiversity can help people live better lives is if they can market some unique product to boost their income. Difficulties arise, however, if someone else, seeing a thriving market, steps in and sells something similar but not quite the same. That’s one reason why certificates of origin are a big deal. Champagne has to come from the Champagne region of France; sparkling white wines made elsewhere using identical methods may be delicious, but they aren’t champagne.

Kathryn, over at Blogging Biodiversity, is following progress at the first meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s ‘Group of Technical Experts on an Internationally Recognized Certificate of Origin/Source/Legal Provenance,’ which is taking place in Peru. She explains why this matters and what the options are better than I could, and I’ll be using her insights to following progress.

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Singular stories

We get used to reading about massive great projects involving loads of stakeholders with mountains of milestones. And we get jaded. But sometimes solutions are much smaller and with them comes a sense of uplift and possibilities. I got that when I found a post from a woman called Juliana, who is a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali. Her big push is for a millet grinding machine. Here’s why:

This machine grounds the millet the women spend so long to pound everyday. It can also ground peanuts into peanut butter and shea nuts to extract their oil. Mali is one of the leading producers of Shea butter so I’d like to help contribute to it’s production in my village.

If I get this machine it will allow the women much needed free time to do other things during the day. Plus one part of getting the machine is the ‘alphabetisation’ of the women. They need to learn how to read and write so that they can keep proper records for the machine. An NGO will take part in helping to provide the education for the women and the training for record keeping. It’s a good way of introducing literacy into a small village.

And she writes about trialling different kinds of millet in the village.

Bioversity International (my day job) has helped to introduce millet mini-mills in India, and the positive repercussions have been phenomenal. Not to blow my own horn too loudly, but you can hear about the mini-mill here, and there’s an accompanying article in New Agriculturalist.

So, Juliana, if you’re reading this, go for it, and let us know how you get on.

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How breeders use genome information

Everything you’ve always wanted to know about the use of genomic information in plant breeding but were afraid to ask is covered in a feature article from the US Department of Agriculture. Well, not quite everything, but Improving Crop Plants Through Genomics does offer a quick run down on some of the techniques and some of the projects, including one on nutritional quality and others on marginal environments and pests and diseases.

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Strange take on Svalbard

There’s an odd piece on the proposed genebank on the Norwegian island of Svalbard at a web site called Science and Spirit. The authors outline the background and purpose of the “Doomsday” genebank, which is being promoted by the Global Crop Diversity Trust and have a little fun with the notion that post-catastrophe survivors will know how to get to Svalbard and what to do with the seeds they find there, always presuming they can penetrate the concrete vault without a key. Then they segue into a lament for the loss of Biblical varieties, which might have contained cures for diseases. It’s all very odd, but like the lady said, all publicity is good publicity. Come to think of it, how will survivors of a calamity make use of the Noah’s Ark genebank on Svalbard?