Came across two maps of threats to biodiversity today. There’s a great online interactive map of the status of, threats to, and conservation actions in, the forests in the southern US. And UNEP has a map of threats to gorilla habitats and protected areas in eastern Congo. As I say, that’s just what turned up in my feed reader today. Now, tell me, why isn’t there something like this for… I don’t know… wheat? I mean forests are important to health, sure. But so is wheat.
Paper on climate change and species distributions attains classic status
Conservation.Bytes features a landmark 2004 paper on the projected effect of climate change on species distributions as its latest Conservation Classic. It also points to a 2008 summary of such studies over at BraveNewClimate. Regular readers will know that there have been studies which have focused specifically on the wild genepools of different crops.
Featured: The need for seed
Cary agrees on the need for caution in seed provision after disasters, and has some recommendations of his own.
In good times or bad, seed introductions by outside agencies must be done with care. There may be reason for genebanks to be more involved in the future in some cases (supplying materials if actually lost and still desired). Stronger connections between relief/development agencies and genebanks and other professionals (who might be able to GIS and other data to ascertain appropriateness of varietal candidates for introduction) would certainly be a good thing.
Nibbles: Boswellia, Nepali rice, Andes, Pacific nutrition, Wild rice, Coffea, Kashmir, Fibres, Fermentation
- Saving Dhofar’s frankincense tree. Evocative things they are too.
- The rich may have trouble getting into heaven, but they manage more agrobiodiversity. At least of rice. At least in Nepal.
- Gotta be careful with niche modeling in mountain areas. Well, duh.
- New Pacific food leaflets from SPC.
- Ok, how weird is it that I have a personal connection of sorts to all of the above? Probably not much.
- Ex situ not enough for wild rice. Say it ain’t so!
- The evolution of coffee.
- “If the rains do not fall we may face problems with certain crops.” Right.
- Network on natural fibres proposed by Industree Craft Foundation and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Sounds like fun.
- Screening lactic acid strains for sorghum beer making. Well, kinda. Somebody please fund this vital research!
Rebuilding livelihoods in Haiti through fairs
It’s very easy to assume that after a disaster one of the things that farmers would most welcome from the outside is good seed. But of course it’s a bit more complicated than that, as an assessment by Catholic Relief Services of the seed sector in Haiti after the recent earthquake makes clear. Perhaps the key result was that there was plenty of seed around:
Good quality seed of the varieties that farmers’ prefer is available in the areas surveyed. The household survey shows that farmers are utilizing similar levels of own seed stock as in previous years. Vendors in the market report normal levels of seed for sale.
The problem was access:
Families simply do not have resources available to make the usual investments in agriculture. This has led, in some instances, to decisions to actually cultivate less because of inability to acquire inputs (including seed, fertilizer, and animal traction).
There were also changes in cropping patterns, with a shift towards shorter-duration crops to get quick yields and income. The main recommendation was stark:
Direct seed distribution should not take place… This emergency is not the appropriate time to try to introduce improved varieties on anything more than a small scale for farmer evaluation.
And there was some trenchant criticism of previous seed distribution programmes:
…seed provided by FAO post hurricane last year either arrived too late to plant during the season or failed to germinate.
Rather, CRS recommended that there should be seed fairs to facilitate access to locally available and adapted planting material, food distribution to alleviate pressure on seed reserves and cash for work to build up household capital to purchase inputs. And also something I’d never heard of: livelihoods fairs, with vouchers. There’s not much on the internet about these, but they seem to take the idea of seed fairs and extend them to other necessities of rural life, such as tools, fertilizers and tin roofing. The idea is “to help restore liquidated reserves and enable farm households to start reinvesting in their productive capacity.”
Now that all seems very sensible, and it strikes me that it probably isn’t the fist time a survey along these lines has been done, and such recommendations put forward. But are the mistakes of the past being repeated anyway?