- Uganda: “Many youth are no longer idle. They grow vegetables and sell them.”
- Iran: “Rice is becoming a luxury for many of the poor, just like meat and chicken.”
- California: “In nearly every scenario we explored, biodiversity suffers...”
- Australia: “the Australian Fish Names Standard AS SSA 5300 which prescribes standard fish names approved for use in Australia.”
- Pretty much anywhere: “linking small-scale producers to modern markets.”
- Dept. of Silver Linings: “Fuel Costs May Force Some Kids To Walk.” Via.
- Tibet: “I’ve lived here long enough.” Via.
Nibbles: Vegetarianism, Home gardening, Climate change, Pigs squared
- Meat is not murder.
- Agribusiness wants to keep you on your allotment and off their back.
- Britons ignore agribusiness in search of The Good Life.
- Talkfest on adapting West African agriculture to climate change.
- Natural feeding regime produces unhealthier pigs that grow more slowly.
- Yeah but I bet these ones taste better!
Nibbles: Old maize, News, World Bank, Organic, Bees, Breeding, Svalbard, Genebank management, Cattle, Fibre
- Maize in the Dominican Republic 1500 years ago. Luigi comments: I see that and raise you wheat in Turkey 8,500 years ago.
- CTA announces news aggregator service. Yes, we feature. Via.
- World Bank country data mashed up with Google Maps. Not as useful as it might be.
- Organic farming researchers meet in Modena. Not all sweetness and light, though.
- BBC podcast on the troubles affecting bees.
- Breeders told to develop really hairy plants to combat warming.
- Svalbard Global Seed Vault makes list of world’s biggest science projects. No comment.
- CIP documents genebank use cases on youtube.
- The perils of herding zebu in Madagascar.
- Ancient Egyptians made cool ropes, but of what?
UG99: The Phantom Menace?
Very good news from the United States Department of Agriculture. Breeders are about to release the first wheat lines that incorporate several genes for resistance to UG99, the new race of rust fungus that threatens wheat worldwide. One line will be available to growers on the east coast of the US. All will be available to breeders worldwide to develop new varieties adapted to local conditions.
Part of the effort leading to the new wheats has been a screening of more than 5000 accessions from several genebanks. One outcome of this massive evaluation exercise has been the discovery that UG99 had overcome many more resistance genes than original estimates. That’s why it has been important to pyramid several resistance genes into the new varieties. Just where those resistance genes came from I don’t know. But the USDA does say that the breeders “also will develop new sources of genetic resistance to rusts from three wild relatives of wheat”.
Good luck to them. Certainly the wheat farmers of Iran, ((I cannot resist a quick aside. At the FAO high-level meeting a couple of weeks ago one of the Iranian delegates dropped by my stall. I struck up a conversation.
Was he worried about UG99?
No, our scientists can control it.
Really? Where can I find out more?
They have communicated with the Authorities.
Really? Where can I find out more?
And so it went, with neither of us making much progress, and I was reminded mostly of the golden age of Stalinist genetics, an oxymoron if ever there was one.)) Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India — the current front in the fight against UG99 — need all the help they can get. But a tiny part of me really rather hopes that the new varieties are not in fact a success.
The world badly needs another demonstration of the power of pests and diseases to destroy food supplies and the importance of agricultural biodiversity to protect us from them. Southern corn blight is the poster child for the value of diversity.
That outbreak more or less created the modern move to conserve crop diversity in genebanks, a move that has lost its impetus as the world forgets that food security requires the ready availability of lots and lots of agricultural biodiversity.
So while I am truly glad that breeders are making progress against UG99, I’d also like to see UG99 make real inroads into the developed world’s wheat crops, just as a reminder, lest they forget. ((I stole the Sith from here. If it is copyrighted, I apologise. Contact me, and I’ll remove it.))
Nibbles: Bananas, Wheat, Cameroon, Bees, Eden, Millennium Villages, Organic, Yam, Ag origins, Apricots
- Compare and contrast the banana and the Big Mac. Dan Koeppel takes it to the masses.
- Lamenting the loss of “amber waves of grain”. Ingrate.
- Cameroon’s agriculture vulnerable to climate change. I’ll alert the media.
- Look what I got you for National Pollinator Week next week; a World Checklist of Bees. Neat-o.
- Celebrate food and farmers in Eden.
- “The core of the strategy is a short-term provision of improved seeds suited to the local environment and fertilizers like Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and urea accompanied by advice on how to use them.” Sounds familiar…
- Meanwhile, in non-Millennium Villages: “While his maize cobs were smaller than others, the seed was of a much higher quality; the fibre of his cotton was also much longer.”
- Japanese yam fields in peril. Yams as in Dioscorea or sweet potato or what? So annoying.
- Neolithic myths?
- California apricot grower explores Central Asia, comes up trumps. Jeremy comments: CandyCots? I think I want to be sick.