Category: Domestication

From Jacob van Etten, our Man on the Strip.

The Association of American Geographers held its annual meeting this week in Las Vegas, of all places. I went there to participate in a series of sessions of agrobiodiversity. Last year these sessions had been very successful, according to others, and this year there were three of them. The mandarins of US social research on agrobiodiversity were there, as well as a crew of Young Turks with interesting new studies.

The sessions were kicked off with two talks about the importance of agricultural geography (Kimberlee Chambers) and the contributions that the discipline and related ones have made to understanding agrobiodiversity (Karl Zimmerer). Laura Lewis explained that crops don’t produce systematically more outside their cradle area. There is a theory that says that crops can escape from co-evolved enemies and diseases when brought to other environments. Laura worked out the statistics. Well, it’s not so simple: some crops produce more, some produce less.

In a second session, the good old CGIAR was very well represented. Yours truly explained ongoing work on improving the geographical aspects of genebank databasing and identifying geographical gaps in collections. I also talked about exciting new modeling techniques that can be used for crop genetic diversity work. I got very a positive response from the audience. Keyu Bai explained how Bioversity uses GIS to target genetic resource management interventions in Asia to specific communities to achieve impact.

Matthew Hufford from Davis showed his findings from the field on teosinte in Mexico, a wild relative of maize. He had cool maps on the genetic structure of teosinte and explained why barriers to gene flow occurred. He then addressed one possible gap in genebank collections: the Road Bias. He explained, however, that with a few samples near the road he captured almost all the diversity present. So the “asphalt eater strategy” to germplasm collection may not be so bad after all. Matthew also cited Garrison Wilkes’ call for in situ conservation initiatives for teosinte. Wilkes expects that teosinte will go extinct fairly soon. Matthew pointed out the difficulties to conserve teosinte in the changing landscapes of Mexico. One reason is that teosinte is a noxious weed. He talked with a farmer, however, who thought that teosinte introgression into maize made it mas fuerte — stronger. Perhaps in situ conservation should be done by massively introgressing teosinte into maize, one participant candidly suggested.

Leah Samberg’s talk in the third session had beautiful photographs of Ethiopian landscapes. She pointed out how farmers in one part of Ethiopia get a lot of their barley seeds from different markets, yet mostly from people from the same area and not from the long-distance traders. Studying the circulation of seeds in markets should give exciting new insights in the geography of plant genetic resources. Kraig Kraft used word clouds to communicate some insights in pepper production and diversity in Mexico. For some reason, dried peppers tend to be traditional, but fresh peppers are all hybrids in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Kraig is going to find out why for us. Steve Brush presented the work of one of his students on tortillas in Mexico. One salient aspect is the amount of wood used to make them and the health problems the smoke produced by wood burning causes.

In another session on the Green Revolution, someone said that agricultural geography has suddenly become “hip and cool”. It has always been, of course.