- Today’s Nibbles is a Kenya edition. Just because.
- But we’ll start with an African foodie revolution that is passing that country by.
- Cattle need diverse foods too, so don’t neglect those forbs, Kenyans.
- A young Kenyan turns to vegetable growing. Not, alas, of the traditional kind. Yet.
- Well, he better get a move on, because it says here people are after his seeds.
- Seeds are what the traditional medicine industry could do with.
- I guess there’s always litchis.
- Wonder what they’ll do to land use patterns.
- But will there ever be perennial sorghum?
Nibbles: FAO Commission, Alpine plants conference, Young breeders, Indian sorghum, Pastoralists in the media, Neglected genomics, More quinoa, Cape Gooseberry in Europe, Database hell, Tomayto tomahto, Maple syrup, Double cropping, Cloning trees, Belated Earth Day, UK Plant Science Week
- Summary of that 14th Session of the CGRFA we were all following last week.
- Conferences on “Changes in alpine and arctic flora under climate change” we’ll all be following in September. If you’re from Balkans, Caucasus, Central Asia, the organizers need you in particular. But hurry, before it’s too late!
- In other news, young scientists are into beer.
- India’s Directorate of Sorghum Research gets a genebank. Relationship with NBPGR unclear.
- Media portrayals of pastoralists in Kenya, China and India: The Report. The Brief. The Press Release. ILRI reaction?
- Neglected crops get the genomic treatment. And why that might be a good thing.
- CIAT wades in on quinoa.
- Call for information on Physalis peruviana cultivation in Europe.
- Biodiversity databases have errors! Shock! Horror! Probe!
- The nutritional difference between organic and conventional tomatoes deconstructed.
- Your maple sugaring questions answered. Nice idea.
- Double crop for development. I guess that’s the sustainable intensification everyone is talking so much about.
- If in doubt, clone it!
- Wait, wait, wait, we missed Earth Day?
- And also a bunch of UK plant science conferences. (I had of course linked to the storifications here originally, but they’ve gone now of course.)
Nibbles: DIY plantains, Poppies, Fruit portions, EU seed law workshop, Sustainable intensification, Nutrition & ag, Traditional medicine, Soil maps, US biodiversity maps, Genomics & genebanks, Indian seed film, Food preservation
- Someone needs to tell the Los Angeles Times that plantains are not the “tropical cousin of the banana”.
- Someone else needs to tell “British and American agricultural advisers” that poppies are generally going to be a better bet than cotton in Helmland Province. Like they were in Ghazipur.
- Is there anyone who can tell schools not to serve whole fruit, when children prefer bite-sized pieces?
- And who will tell us what happens at the Workshop in the EU Seed Law, in Vienna today and tomorrow?
- In which we are once again told that sustainable intensification is the answer, but not how to do it.
- A tool for helping agricultural development types figure out what to do about nutrition.
- Let the Times of India tell you about how wild fruits and seeds are used in traditional medicine.
- ISRIC tells the world about its new soil maps of Africa.
- And the US government about its biodiversity, also in maps.
- Lots of people recently told their stories of how genomics is going to revolutionize genetic resources use to a meeting in ICRISAT, and now ICRISAT tells us.
- A new film tells the story of rice savers in India. Not, presumably, though, Bihar.
- Are you really telling me Genghis Khan was a food waste champion?
Brainfood: Wild pepper, Lettuce gene, Qat genetic structure, Date oases, Raised fields, Waxy sorghum, Striga resistant cowpea, Wild soybean, Kenaf diversity
- Domestication, Conservation, and Livelihoods: A Case Study of Piper peepuloides Roxb. — An Important Nontimber Forest Product in South Meghalaya, Northeast India. Managed crop wild relative manages to turn a profit for Indian forest dwellers.
- Expression of 9-cis-EPOXYCAROTENOID DIOXYGENASE4 Is Essential for Thermoinhibition of Lettuce Seed Germination but Not for Seed Development or Stress Tolerance. Managed crop wild relative gene could eventually turn a profit for commercial lettuce growers.
- Evaluation of microsatellites of Catha edulis (qat; Celastraceae) identified using pyrosequencing. Can be used to trace origin. The Man exults.
- Date palm as a keystone species in Baja California peninsula, Mexico oases. Jesuit-introduced exotics can be keystone species too. The Pope exults.
- Ancient human agricultural practices can promote activities of contemporary non-human soil ecosystem engineers: A case study in coastal savannas of French Guiana. Formerly managed landscape now managed by soil organisms.
- A novel waxy allele in sorghum landraces in East Asia. Out of East Asia…
- Identification of new sources of resistance to Striga gesnerioides in cowpea germplasm. As ever, they are not the ones farmers actually like.
- Development of EST-SSR markers for diversity and breeding studies in opium poppy. And, they work on the related species! Afghans exult.
- Kunitz trypsin inhibitor polymorphism in the Korean wild soybean (Glycine soja Sieb. & Zucc.). In other news, there is wild soybean in Korea.
- Genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationship of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) accessions evaluated by SRAP and ISSR. Originated in Kenya-Tanzania area.
Conserving an Indian banana every which way
I hope the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) won’t mind us reproducing in full a recent post on their Facebook page, entitled Geographical Indications to Elite Agri-Products. It’s just that I don’t know whether if I just point to the URL anyone else will be able to see it.
When you buy Dussehri mango, are you sure you have paid the price for real Dussehri that belongs to Malihabad region of Uttar Pradesh near Lucknow? Same is true for Nanjanagud Banana, Allahabad Surkha (guava), Nagpur Orange, Pokkali Rice from Kerala and many other agri-products belonging to a specified geographical territory. To protect the interest of consumers and producers Parliament enacted the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, which came into force in September, 2003. Agricultural, natural or manufactured goods originating from a definite geographical territory are registered under the Act and given the status of Geographical Indicator. The specific features or uniqueness is largely due to existing geo-climatic situation in the region of production. By now, more than 150 products have been registered as GIs including some of the renowned agricultural products. A survey by National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM) found that consumers are willing to pay more for agricultural GIs than non-agricultural GI products, therefore is GI for farmers? And how do we go further prior to registration and after registration?
Having just posted about that new wild banana subspecies from India, I guess it was inevitable that I would decide to take a few minutes to look into the “Nanjanagud Banana” a bit more deeply. It’s unfortunately not one of the case studies described in a very thorough paper on the Indian agricultural IPR system. ((Though it is mentioned in an even more thorough presentation, weighing in at a hefty 91 slides.)) But the variety known locally as Rasabaley certainly seems to have contributed to making Nanjangud, a town in Mysore district in the state of Karnataka, famous.
The fruit evokes tremendous appreciation for its taste among the older generation of the region. A variety of banana that offers a distinctive taste, “Nanjangud rasabale” has tickled the taste buds of people from far and wide.
However, despite its charms, and high cost, it was until recently described as on the way to disappearing.
The crop that was raised in around 500 acres just three decades ago has come down to around 100 acres now, mostly concentrated in villages of Kaarya, Devarasanahalli, Hullahalli, Kumbarahalli, Tagadur-Hanumanthapura and Hadinaru of Nanjangud taluk, near here. Just around 50 farmers showed interest to grow the crop, and many who tried gave up following losses. Devarasanahalli, which supplied large quantities of this banana variety, today has only 28 acres under “Nanjangud rasabale.”
Which seems to have been the rationale for slapping a geographic indication on it.
To ensure an independent identity that is exclusive to the fruit, the Department of Horticulture applied and registered “Nanjangud rasabale” in the Geographical Indications Registry of the Union Government during July 2005. Incidentally, “Nanjangud rasabale” along with “Mysore Betel” vine, a variety of betel vine and “Coorg Orange” were the first crop varieties in the country to be registered in GI registry.
It’s unclear to me whether this has worked. ICAR is silent on the subject, beyond that enigmatic question at the end of their Facebook post:
And how do we go further prior to registration and after registration?
How indeed. Good to know, therefore, that “Nanjangud rasabale” does seem to be conserved ex situ, according to MGIS, at India’s National Research Centre for Banana. It’s not, however, backed up at the International Transit Centre. Which is a pity, as there would be a pleasing completeness to the story if it were.