- “On the contrary, ‘doesn’t come true from seed’ is another way of saying ‘has lots of exciting diversity’.” Rebsie rounds up her tomatoes.
- Domestication of African rice explored at the Vaviblog.
- Entebbe Botanical Gardens has a genebank. That’s all I know.
- Roland continues to dream of a South Sea genebank paradise; one island, one coconut variety.
- “Cary Fowler explains the vital importance of crop wild relatives to address the future challenges to agriculture,” it says at the Trust website.
- Let them eat bread. Foreign Affairs on food riots. h/t Rachel, who has some interesting things to say on the subject.
- Fascinating behind the scenes insights into Economic Botany collections at Kew and elsewhere.
Heirloom seeds exposed
The New York Times carried a long article on heirloom seeds on Wednesday. It is both balanced and iconoclastic, but anyone reading in Europe, might, like me, have raised a metaphorical eyebrow at this paragraph:
But the “universities have basically shut down all their programs for home gardeners,” Mr. Gettle said. “Most plant breeders are owned by a few large seed companies. I wish they would develop more things for the home garden.”
You don’t get to be a large seed company by paying any attention to home gardeners who, in any case, say they want to be able to save their own seeds from year to year. Nevertheless, the NYT went on to talk about some of the backyard breeders and small, regional seed companies that are doing precisely that, developing varieties for home gardeners and smaller commercial growers. In the US, and many other places, the market determines what people can get. If the marketing claims made for heirlooms are sketchy, the New York Times will find people to say so. And if large seed companies are failing to satisfy some market segments, other suppliers can try to do better.
European growers and breeders still don’t have that luxury. Directives on conservation varieties do nothing to encourage future breeding efforts, they merely permit old varieties to be marketed under certain conditions. In England and Wales, at any rate, new varieties will still need to be formally listed on the Common Catalogue. As far as I know, the conservation directives so far have been implemented only in Ireland, ((Please correct me.)) and a report assessing the value of the directives, due in late 2010 or early 2011, has not surfaced either.
Anyone in Europe wishing to grow unregistered varieties — whatever their motivation, and no matter how misguided they may be — has to find other channels. Of which, I’m glad to say, there seems to be an increasing number.
Nibbles: Cattle, Markets, Breadfruit
- Cattle for everyone. ILRI hedges its bets.
- Markets in everything: smallholder edition.
- Breadfruit everywhere. Yeah that’ll work.
Perennial grains: the road not taken
“The whole world is mostly perennials,” says USDA geneticist Edward Buckler, who studies corn at Cornell University. “So why did we domesticate annuals?” Not because annuals were better, he says, but because Neolithic farmers rapidly made them better—enlarging their seeds, for instance, by replanting the ones from thriving plants, year after year. Perennials didn’t benefit from that kind of selective breeding, because they don’t need to be replanted. Their natural advantage became a handicap. They became the road not taken.
National Geographic goes back to the fork and rounds up the perennial grain story. Nothing new for readers here, of course, but good to see it in the mainstream. And if you want to see one reason why perennial grains are a good idea, just look at the picture above the article. Easily worth 1000 words.
Nibbles: Sake, Wine, Kew, Climate change, Canada, Banana processing
- To a hammer, everything is a nail; Decanter magazine bemoans loss of sake breweries in Japan.
- One door closes, another one opens; “price winning” Croatian wines.
- Why go to Kew when you can tour with Google streetview?
- Slideshow on genebanks and climate change adaptation in Ethiopia. Wish I could hear the words.
- Canadians! Your heritage crops and breeds need you.
- How best to dry banana slices in Ethiopia.