- India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library a bulwark against piracy. Ahoy me mateys!
- Oh give me a home, where the buffalo-cow hybrid roamed.
- “We’ve found one of the most important disease resistance genes in wheat.”
- Cassava on its way to being a complete meal. Oh joy.
- Usual suspects debate GM.
- The history of the American wilderness movement deconstructed.
- Australia’s Northern Territory needs more collectors.
- “USDA People’s Garden announced today will eliminate 1,250 square feet of unnecessary paved surface at the USDA headquarters and return the landscape to grass.” Michelle likes it.
- Pig domestication, for Vavilov and now.
Professional Plant Breeders for Tomorrow
The International Centre for Plant Breeding Education and Research (ICPBER) at the University of Western Australia (UWA) provides advanced education and research in plant breeding to enhance the world’s future supply of plant-based food, fibre and industrial raw materials in an era of changing climates.
ICPBER has only recently started work (August 2008), so it may be too early to tell what strategic directions it will take, but I hope it will cover both conventional and biotech approaches, and live up to its name by addressing the needs of all regions and crops. Will it compete with, say, similar Africa-based initiatives? I suspect there’s enough room — enough need — for both. Anyway, good to see it link up with the Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB). That should minimize the chances of duplication of efforts.
Nibbles: Space, Grape shapes, Genetic diversity, Diseases, Bamboo, Geographic indications, Cacao
- Sweet potatoes in space. Why?
- Oblong grapes. Why?
- Mega targets of selection. Why?
- Uganda battles cassava and banana diseases.
- Increased bamboo production will not, repeat NOT, put the panda at risk.
- Mandatory disclosure of source and origin for Genetic Resources (GR) and Traditional Knowledge (TK) unpacked. Well, kinda.
- Gates funds cacao, cashew value chain. But not conservation, it seems.
Agrobiodiversity and the food crisis
UNEP has just published The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. ((Nellemann, C., MacDevette, M., Manders, T., Eickhout, B., Svihus, B., Prins, A. G., Kaltenborn, B. P. (Eds). February 2009. The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal. ISBN: 978-82-7701-054-0)) I found out about it because its illustrations are separately available on the GRID-Arendal website and I subscribe to its feed. Which is weird, because I’d have thought UNEP would make more of this. Maybe I just missed the announcement of the launch.
Any agricultural biodiversity in it, I hear you ask. Actually, perhaps surprisingly, yes. There’s a box on “Using crop genetic diversity to combat pests and diseases in agriculture” on page 57. There’s a box on “Enhancing sustainability through the use of crop wild relatives” on page 74. And, though admittedly it doesn’t address agrobiodiversity specifically, there’s a section on increasing research investment in agriculture on page 81. I’ll take that.
Rooting for the tubers
The Root Crops Agrobiodiversity Project in Vanuatu is inventorying varieties in various villages around the archipelago, and coming up with some astonishing results. ((Although an old Pacific hand of my acquaintance disputes the inclusion of the Solomon Islands in this statement from the press release: “In other Pacific archipelagos, such as New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands, the introduction by the Europeans of new root and tuber species, combined with the arrival of a market economy, has totally disrupted the existing systems.”)) But, crucially, the work will not stop there. One of the objectives of the project is “to identify new varieties aiming at broadening the existing genetic bases and to propose them to producers and users, taking into account their needs and preferences.” So it’s more than the usual 3Cs — collect-characterize-conserve. There’s also creation, and dissemination, of new diversity, via seed production. That’s not that easy to do with taros and yams, but then, neither is conservation in conventional field and in vitro genebanks. It’s a very sensible idea to get the diversity increasing and moving around, rather than locking it up on research stations.