The FreshPlaza newsletter is a veritable treasure trove of information on fruit & veg around the world. Yesterday’s issue was particularly rich in agrobiodiversity articles. Among other things, it pointed to pieces about how the British are losing their cherry varieties, and about how a Washington State farmer found a new one. There was also an appreciation from Pakistan of the local fruit known as “jamun“, which is probably Syzygium cumini.
“The rain and wind would come”
For centuries, the Kamayurá planted their summer crops when a certain star appeared on the horizon. “When it appeared, everyone celebrated because it was the sign to start planting cassava since the rain and wind would come,” Chief Kotok recalled. But starting seven or eight seasons ago, the star’s appearance was no longer followed by rain, an ominous divergence, forcing the tribe to adjust its schedule.
It has been an ever-shifting game of trial and error since. Last year, families had to plant their cassava four times — it died in September, October and November because there was not enough moisture in the ground. It was not until December that the planting took. The corn also failed, said Mapulu, the chief’s sister. “It sprouted and withered away,” she said.
That’s from a NY Times article from the Xingu National Park in Brazil. And it’s not just the Kamayurá’s cassava that is being affected.
Deforestation and, some scientists contend, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks in this area and imperiling the Kamayurá’s very existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the world with little money or capacity to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.
That eerily echoes the experience of the Tla’Amin people, a Canadian First Nation. But that’s another story. Back to cassava. Coincidentally, our friend and colleague Andy Jarvis has just shared a presentation which looks at the effect of climate change on cassava in Latin America.
Perhaps Andy will tell us whether the changes Chief Kotok described are in line with what his models are telling him.
Nibbles: Potatoes, Tortillas, EU agricultural promotion, Human diversity, Children
- Potato fest at the Vavilov Institute next week. Report for us!
- Gary Nabhan on tortillas made of “mesquite pods, the flour of ground, popped amaranth seeds, wheat flour and olive oil.”
- EU to fund promotion of agricultural products, including information campaigns on the EU system of PDO, PGI, TSG, QWPSR et al. Via.
- Diversity good even within individuals.
- Engaging children in Sahelian agriculture and agrobiodiversity.
Nibbles: Camel sweets, UG99, British woods, Rice, India and climate change, Soay sheep, Fish, Seed fair, Barn owls, Food maps, Earthworms
- Chocolate made from camel milk for the first time. And last?
- “Slow rusting” genes from Ethiopian wheat landraces.
- Brits (and Yanks, for that matter) look for ancient trees in woodlands becoming ever less distinctive.
- The world needs GM rice, but alas “the environment for accepting genetically modified crops is not as good as it should be.” Meanwhile, IRRI keeps hammering away at drought tolerance and resistance to other assorted stresses. It’s hard being rice.
- ICAR looks at the likely effects of climate change on crops and what can be done about it.
- Climate change making Soay sheep (and, incidentally, European fish too) not just smaller, also darker. Speaking of fish, there’s trouble in the Zambezi too, but not necessarily due to climate change. Although…
- A Greek seed bazaar.
- FAO turns to barn owls to stop Laotian rodent plague.
- US food policy destinations on Google Maps.
- Vermicomposting is good news for the Indian textile industry. Vermicomposting: I like saying that word.
Back to sorghum: an African response to climate change?
Another in our series of occasional contributions from Jacob van Etten.
Last week I was at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) to talk about seed systems. To some degree or another, the people around the table were maize experts. We discussed climate change and this led to some reflections on the question:
If maize harvests are failing in Africa, why do most farmers not switch to sorghum?
When you ask the average agricultural scientist for solutions to climate change, the first idea he ((Most agricultural scientists are male.)) will come up with is to build drought tolerance and heat tolerance into major field crops. Most CGIAR centres and research programmes are structured around individual crops, so everyone has an incentive to stick to their own crop and stretch and bend it as much as possible to adapt to climate change. But what if simply switching from one crop to another does the trick?
Sorghum is a more drought-resistant crop than maize. Sorghum and maize are otherwise similar enough to make switching technologically fairly easy. Sorghum originated in Africa, unlike maize. Switching “back” to sorghum makes sense in many respects.
Several factors stand in the way of sorghum adoption in Africa, however. Maize seems to have become an acquired taste in many parts of the continent. Therefore, maize has a higher market demand than sorghum. By selling their maize surplus on the market, farmers can earn some money to pay school fees and the like. Sorghum is also more sensitive than maize to bird attacks. In a nutshell, maize lets African children be at school, sorghum pulls them from school to chase after the birds.
Even so, farmers are switching from maize to sorghum in Swaziland. These farmers are growing a bitter variety that birds don’t like. However, perhaps that makes it less marketable as grain for human consumption? The bitter taste of sorghum comes from tannins, which are have anti-oxidant properties. But although birds prefer sweet sorghum, they will still eat bitter sorghum if food is scarce. Also, a high tannin content decreases palatability. It seems that African farmers need alternative ways to deal with birds. Early varieties could perhaps help to avoid migratory birds, and synchrony in planting and maturing could spread the damage. Having the school holidays when sorghum is most vulnerable to bird attacks would be another option. … Any other ideas out there?
In Zambia, CARE is trying to help farmers grow more sorghum. One of the main challenges there is to develop a viable sorghum market. Economic incentives to continue growing maize may well be “climatologically perverse”. For instance, in Zambia, the major maize buyer is the government. Adapting to climate change may require African governments to buy more sorghum in order to develop viable sorghum markets. Liberalization, of course, has diminished the role of government cereal stocks in many African countries. Even so, there may still be a pro-maize bias in agricultural policy. Historically, sorghum hasn’t received the same level of state support as maize.
Creating more commercial demand for sorghum is key. Dietary preferences can change and economic incentives could help a great deal to achieve that. For instance, sorghum could become an obligatory ingredient in school feeding programmes. Sorghum is already increasingly used as a beer brewing ingredient by big brewers. Nigerian Guinness is made with sorghum and is not a bad beer at all.
“Fight climate change, drink more beer,” how does that sound?