If the internet had been around when N.I. Vavilov was on his travels, collecting agrobiodiversity around the world, I’m pretty sure he’d have been blogging. And Vaviblog is what the result would have looked like. Go, subscribe, comment, help keep the flame alive.
Disappearing wild potatoes mined for drought tolerance
An article in National Geographic looks at possible changes in the climate of the Andes, how they will affect potatoes, and what breeders are doing about it. The wild relatives are very much to the fore:
“The crosses we are developing between wild, drought-tolerant varieties and modern potatoes now are for the future,” said Meredith Bonierbale, senior potato breeder at the International Potato Center in Lima.
The article also quotes our friend, colleague and occasional contributor Andy Jarvis, ((Andy works for CIAT and Bioversity in Cali, Colombia.)) who recently collaborated with others on a paper which concluded that some of those very same wild relatives are themselves threatened:
“Even if we halt habitat loss, in the next 50 years, climate change could undo all of the conservation that we already have,” said Jarvis.
Nibbles: Research, Chilli, Gardening, Mice
- IFPRI says exchange of genetic resources a “best bet” for large-scale research investment. Ok, but why just research it? Why not just do it?
- Too hot to handle.
- World Food Garden. Via.
- Another commensal fingerprinted.
World Bank supports cacao diversity project
Good news from our friend Hannes Dempewolf, of the University of British Columbia. Congratulations to all involved!
Last Friday was the day of the big decision on whether we had made the cut and would be pronounced a winner at this year’s Development Marketplace competition of the World Bank. An event geared towards innovative approaches to agricultural development, the competition was very tough. Nevertheless, the jury seemed to like our idea of establishing a DNA-fingerprinting based system of traceability for ancient cacao varieties and declared this Bioversity International-led project a winner, together with 21 others, including another on cacao that dealt more specifically with organoleptic assessments of Ecuadorian cacao diversity. Generally, agricultural biodiversity featured big time at the competition, with several project proposals on neglected and underutilized species as well as diversity driven value chain development approaches for coffee, or in our case cocoa.
After the excitement of the award ceremony had settled, some World Bank staffers approached me and told me that one representative of our project, as well as of two other projects, had been selected to meet the president of the World Bank, Robert B. Zoellick, for lunch. ((Photo from the World Bank Development Marketplace Blog.)) This certainly came as a big surprise and all three of us were somewhat unsure what to expect, since the World Bank staffers had made clear to us that this would be a meeting of utmost rarity since the president usually never does lunchtime meetings and he only this morning had arrived from the UN’s annual general assembly meeting in New York City. After such a build-up, I was quite nervous and had eaten way too many cocoa nibs from my display stall before the president eventually arrived at my booth to learn from me about our proposal. He seemed very keen to hear about our project idea and to my surprise was particularly interested in the more technical details, which I had not expected from an economist of his stature. He asked me how we came up with our idea and what had lead us to submit the proposal, which I had no problem explaining with my enthusiasm on agricultural biodiversity and my belief in a “conservation through use” philosophy. We were then guided upstairs to his office facilities where we were offered lunch with the president as well as a few other World Bank staffers and past winners. He seemed very keen in the Development Marketplace competition per se, since it is one of the rare occasions that the World Bank offers direct assistance to more grassroots organizations rather than big government ones.
The table conversation was largely focussed on our proposed projects and he asked everyone in turn quite detailed questions on the wider framework and relevancy of the problem, which they were trying to solve with their proposals. At the end of the lunch he asked us whether anyone had any final remarks, at which point I mentioned that I was very impressed by the diversity and high quality of the project ideas that had been presented by the 100 finalists of the competition and whether there wouldn’t be a way to increase the funding pool in future years to give more finalists the chance to implement their great ideas. He seemed to think it might be possible with the help of additional donors, which everyone was happy to learn. We then all returned from the executive level high up in one of the wings of the World Bank building down to the inner courtyard of the bank and proceeded to join the other finalists at a special policy dialogue on “Cultivating Innovation: A Response to the Food Price Crisis” that had been offered as final event of these exciting four days.
Nibbles: Fungi, Early warming, Food banks, High concept, Russia, Wine, Apples, China, Sustainable ag
- Vesicular arbuscular mychorriza help improve fallows.
- Google.org has a Predict and Prevent Initiative to catch outbreaks of human diseases before they happen. Would be nice to have something similar for threats of erosion of agrobiodiversity.
- Niger’s soudure food banks: could they act as village-level genebanks?
- You might call it meta-farming—the quasi-philosophical approach to raising crops and livestock that proceeds not from necessity or commercial aims but a concept.
- Farming in Russia: a slide show with narration.
- Army worm wine. WTF? Via. (They’re caterpillars.)
- A Kazak apple a day keeps the blue mold away.
- Neolithic China: not just rice.
- The oldest continuous cotton experiment in the world.