Author: Luigi Guarino

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In vino veritas

Thanks to Ola Westengen for contributing this post.

Serendipity seems to be the modus operandi of this great blog and so is the case with this post. On a trip last Sunday to look at this Etruscan world heritage site outside Cerveteri I stumbled into a Sagra dell’Uva –a town festival to celebrate the grape. I took the picture shown below and had some great Cerveteri Bianco Secco before walking on to the amazing Etruscan ruins. Then back in the office I came across a news item from the latest edition of Nature about the newly published sequence of the grapevine genome. The French-Italian consortium of researchers has read the half billion letter book of life of the variety Pinot Noir.

The draft sequence of the grapevine genome is the fourth one produced so far for flowering plants, the second for a woody species and the first for a fruit crop. Grapevine was selected because of its important place in the cultural heritage of humanity beginning during the Neolithic period.

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The authors cite the Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote that Mediterranean people began to emerge from ignorance when they learnt to cultivate olives and grapes. I’m still ignorant, but it is starting to dawn on me that vine buffs must be some of the best perpetuators and celebrators of agricultural biodiversity — just take a look at the variety list on Wikipedia.

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Promotion of new crops and its effects

Following on from yesterday’s post, which looked at the UNEP-WCMC report on the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, including agricultural biodiversity, I wanted today to signal the publication by the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) of a new position paper which is somewhat related, and of which I am a one of the authors. ((Dawson, I.K., Guarino, L. and Jaenicke, H. (2007) Underutilised Plant Species: Impacts of Promotion on Biodiversity. Position Paper No. 2. International Centre for Underutilised Crops, Colombo, Sri Lanka.)) This looks at the impact of promoting underutilised plant species (UPS) on overall levels of biodiversity in farming systems.

ICUC’s position on biodiversity is that its promotion should not be viewed as an “end in itself.” Rather, diversity needs to be “conserved through use,” or the livelihood opportunities it presents and the other services that it provides to the poor, both primary producers and local product processors, now and for the future. The significant nutritional and other health benefits received by consumers further afield in, e.g., urban areas and in other countries, through being able to access a more diverse range of foods, medicines and other products, should, however, also not be neglected.

Clearly, there are significant benefits that can accrue to poor families and communities, as well as others, through the promotion of one or more UPS — better nutrition, health, income etc. However, such promotion can result in the erosion of diversity in other crops, and in the agricultural landscape as a whole. If that happens, any benefits which UPS promotion delivers in the short term could be outweighed by long-term negative effects on the provision of the sorts of ecosystem services the WCMC paper discussed. ((We also discuss in our paper the complexity of the linkages between diversity, productivity and stability.))

In the ICUC paper, we look at the possible methods that can be used to promote UPS and suggest a number of conditions that should be met if such interventions are not to have undesired effects on biodiversity and the services it provides:

  • Possible consequences of promotion for agricultural and natural biodiversity should be described in advance, in order to assess potential livelihood and conservation risks.
  • Specific incentives that support diversification should be included when promotion of a UPS carries significant risks for biodiversity.
  • Particular actions that are known to support biodiversity should be used during promotion, e.g. improving germplasm access and supporting “intelligent markets” for products.
  • The consequences of promotion activities for biodiversity, and the linked impacts on livelihoods, should be monitored.

“Intelligent markets” are ones that improve both incomes and environmental management. Developing such markets “will involve educating producers and microprocessors in how to diversify their activities, encouraging value chain development, and supporting DO [denomination of origin] and related initiatives.” I particularly wanted to highlight this point because, coincidentally, FAO has just published a report on “Approaches to linking producers to markets” which looks at how best to help farmers organize themselves to supply identified markets. ((Andrew W. Shepherd (2007) Approaches to linking producers to markets: A review of experiences to date. Agricultural Management, Marketing and Finance Occasional Paper 13. FAO, Rome.))

We’ve had a few examples of this on the blog lately, haven’t we? They have ranged from the Ojibwa and their wild rice to the “under the sun” cheeses of Italy just in the past few days. Is it a zeitgeist thing?

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The services of agricultural biodiversity

The latest (number 18) Biodiversity and Society Bulletin of the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group discusses a new UNEP-WCMC publication ((Ash, N. and Jenkins, M. (2007). Biodiversity and Poverty Reduction: The Importance of Ecosystem Services. United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge.)) entitled “Biodiversity and Poverty Reduction: The Importance of Ecosystem Services.”

It’s a very good assessment of the services provided by biodiversity, in particular to the poor. These services include:

  1. fresh water quality
  2. protection from natural hazards
  3. regulation of infectious diseases
  4. regulation of climate and air quality
  5. waste processing and detoxification
  6. nutrient cycling
  7. medicines
  8. timber, fibres and fuel
  9. cultural services

But food provision and food security are right up front, and that discussion doesn’t just deal with species diversity in farming systems (although this is somewhat underplayed, I think), landraces (though not, unfortunately, wild crop relatives, to any great extent) and wild foods. It also ranges over the wider agricultural biodiversity which supports food production. That means soil micro-organisms, pollinators and the natural enemies of pests:

Although some or all these functions can in theory be replaced by artificial, technologically-derived substitutes, these are often expensive and increase the dependency of poor people on industries and producers beyond their control.

The document ends with some implications for policy. I guess this is the bottom line:

The medium and long-term interests of the poor are likely to be best served by the maintenance of a diverse resource base at the landscape (i.e. accessible) scale, at the very least as a vital risk mitigation measure. This does not, of course, mean that all forms of intensification and adoption of new technologies should be avoided – far from it. Judicious application of new technologies and techniques, use of improved varieties (not necessarily excluding those developed with gene transfer technologies) in agriculture, and appropriate levels of inputs such as nitrogen and phosphate-based fertiliser, can increase productivity and help towards eliminating poverty. Increasing the efficiency of use of existing agricultural lands can actually reduce environmental degradation by reducing the incentive to convert marginal lands. The key is that such development should not be at the expense of the existing natural resource base and should be planned to ensure delivery of medium and long-term benefits, rather than maximising short-term gains.

Pity that the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is not mentioned in the section on international obligations, though.

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Transhumance in central Italy

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Another interesting thing about the Gran Sasso (pictured above in a photo I took a few days ago) that is related to agricultural biodiversity, apart from the famous lentil I talked about earlier ((And thanks to Lorenzo for adding some useful details to the post.)), is that its grazing lands are at one end of a famous transhumance route.

Transhumance is the seasonal movement of livestock in search of pasture. The route in question, the Royal Shepherd’s Track, has been proposed as a World Heritage Site. Its other end is at Capitanata, near Foggia, almost 300 km away to the southeast.

The Track may have been in use for a thousand years, but until recently the future of this way of life in Europe was bleak:

…though transhumance seemed doomed a few decades ago, all of a sudden — thanks to the commitment of a number of dedicated players as well as support from people in high places (the EU, Slow Food) — it looks like it’s due for a reprieve…

A key player in the transhumance revival is Roberto Rubino of Anfosc, ((Associazione nazionale formaggi sotto il cielo, or the National Association of Cheeses Under the Sky.)) an Italian organisation devoted to quality cheeses made from the milk of animals that live outdoors (‘sotto il cielo’) in ancient pastures rich with hundreds of different grasses, wild flowers and herbs instead of being shut up in stables and pumped with artificial food…

Patrick Fabre of the Maison de la Transhumance in St Martin de Crau, Provence, is singing from the same hymn sheet. Like Rubino, he notes that animals fed naturally and grazing out in the open are healthier, while the meat (and/or cheese) they produce is of superior quality and distinctive flavour. Some of these regional products (Sisteron lamb, fromage d’alpage) enjoy Label Rouge and/or Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, and command a corresponding premium.