Author: Luigi Guarino

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Disappearing languages, disappearing agrobiodiversity

There are about 7,000 languages currently spoken around the world. By 2100, there will half that, if we’re lucky. That’s according to Harrison and Gregory Anderson of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Oregon, who “traveled the world to interview the last speakers of critically endangered languages as part of the National Geographic Society’s Enduring Voices Project.” Here’s a telling quote from Harrison Anderson:

Most of what we know about species and ecosystems is not written down anywhere, it’s only in people’s heads.

Just compare the map of hotspots of language loss with those of centres of crop origin and diversity. When the last native speakers of those 3,500 doomed languages go in the next century or so, they’ll be taking with them irreplaceable knowledge of agricultural biodiversity. Knowledge which we’ll need to make the most of that agrobiodiversity, and indeed to conserve it in situ (should we wish to) 1.

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Ft Collins genebank in the news

There’s an article about USDA’s long-term genebank at Ft Collins, Colorado in the Denver Post:

Global warming is predicted by some seed-physiology scientists to wipe out as much as 40 percent of the world’s crops, according to Kathryn Kennedy, director of the St. Louis-based Center for Plant Conservation, a longtime user of the seed bank.

Plant breeders and researchers will turn here for the seeds to produce the crops adapted to new climatic conditions.

“We have always tried to stay three steps ahead, but with global warming, we’re concerned three steps may not be enough,” said Christine Walters, a plant physiologist and self-described seed nerd at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Center for Genetic Resource Preservation.

Inevitably, Svalbard gets a name-check, though accompanied by a little bit of a sneer :), I thought:

Unlike the new, attention-getting “doomsday” seed bank dug into the permafrost of Svalbard, Norway, to be the ultimate seed backup, seeds go in and out of the Fort Collins site. About 150,000 seed samples were sent out last year.

It’s a long article, but well worth reading. And check out the slide-show too. The only blemish 2 is that the genebank is referred to as the “CSU gene bank,” CSU being Colorado State University. Well, it’s undoubtedly on the campus of CSU, but the National Center for Genetic Resource Preservation is a federal facility under USDA.

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Green Millennium Revolution Villages debated

I’ve blogged a few times before about the Millennium Villages. An initiative of the Earth Institute at Columbia University launched in 2004, the Millennium Villages project aims “to demonstrate how the eight Millennium Development Goals can be met in rural Africa within five years through community-led development.” 3

Pedro Sanchez, director of the Millennium Villages Project, The Earth Institute at Columbia University debated the project, and also Africa’s proposed new Green Revolution (another frequent subject hereabouts), with the anthropologist Paul Richards of Wageningen University yesterday at the Development Studies Association Annual Conference. That’s going on at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK.

Would have been great to be there, and ask why it is that supporting the Millennium Villagers manage and enhance their agrobiodiversity doesn’t seem to be much on the agenda. But here’s the next best thing: a description of the encounter, one of a series of entries on the conference you’ll find at The Crossing, the blog of the STEPS Centre. 4

Here’s an intriguing snippet from the blog:

Richards says the Green Revolution induces spread of innovation by showing the seed system the “correct” pattern. But an alternative can be based on unsupervised learning that already takes place, he adds, whizzing through some very big and interesting ideas very quickly.

Kinda makes you wish you’d been there in person, doesn’t it?

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Private apple genebank

It’s easy enough to get into the habit of thinking that only institutions run genebanks. Things like government research institutes, private seed companies, university departments and maybe NGOs. In fact, of course, private enthusiasts can and do also play an important role in ex situ conservation — of fruit and veg diversity in particular. For example, there’s Gene Yale, of Skokie, near Chicago, who has a passion for collecting apple varieties and planting them in his suburban garden. He’s got over a hundred of them, including the spectacularly ugly but equally tasy Knobbed Russet. Why? Because, as he points out, he’s “nuts.” For agrobiodiversity, clearly. And in a good way. With video goodness.

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US agricultural assistance to the vulnerable

The US Bureau of International Information Programs has been producing “a series of articles on U.S. food aid and agricultural assistance for vulnerable populations around the world.” The fifth is just out, and this is how it starts:

Scientists from the United States and other nations want to create another “green revolution,” particularly in Africa, that would help poor countries better meet their own food needs and the demands of export markets.

Within governmental, university and private-sector partnerships, researchers are working on new agricultural technologies that can help poor countries end food scarcity and malnutrition.

The article then goes on to list various examples of US scientists working with national agricultural research programmes around the world and CGIAR centres to develop such innovations as “improved crop varieties, more effective fertilizers, new livestock vaccines and new food-processing techniques.”

Which is fine. But why not even a passing mention of the National Plant Germplasm System? At over 450,000 accessions, the genebanks of the NPGS are second only to those of the CGIAR in the amount of agrobiodiversity they conserve. That’s a lot of raw materials for innovation.