More research on agriculture needed
Nature News reports on a meeting last week hosted by Jeff Sachs at Columbia University in New York. The idea was to create a global agriculture monitoring network, something he’s been promoting for a while, and all the big guns were there. ((Well, all the big guns except the big guns who were in Rome to launch an “integrated strategy on researching environmental change“. And maybe some big guns weren’t at either. Or maybe they’re not big guns. I’m lost.)) Sachs told the meeting that scientists “simply do not have the data they need to properly explore” how agriculture has changed the world. “We want to understand ecosystems and the people who are living in them,” Sachs said.
Good thinking. Sandy Andelman, of Conservation International, told the meeting about a pilot project in Tanzania.
In addition to basic environmental data about soils, nutrients and land cover, the project tracks agricultural practices. It also incorporates data about income, health and education that is maintained by the government. Andelman says that … initial results from the project have already prompted the Tanzanian government to adjust the way it zones agricultural land in the area.
That does sound good. I wonder, though, do the “agricultural practices” Andelman monitors have anything on the deliberate use of specific agricultural biodiversity to buffer against environmental shocks, or to enhance resilience in the face of pests and diseases, or to adapt to climate change? Maybe, though I’m not holding my breath. When Sachs first floated the idea, on which Andelman was a co-author, Luigi noted that it didn’t “mention the desirability of monitoring levels of agricultural biodiversity on-farm”.
Some of the meeting attendees want to go slow. The Gates Foundation thinks “a dozen or so” would be a good start to “get the ball rolling”. Sachs wants more. Nature News says he envisages “500 sites within two or three years”.
“We need to get this thing up and running,” he says, warning of the perils of endless organizational meetings. “I don’t want to spend ten years on this.”
Agreed, but it would be even worse, in my opinion, to build such a network, even if it does take 10 years, and not monitor the amount of agrobiodiversity and how farmers make use of it.
Seems like all that rice breeding was worth it after all
ACIAR has just published a huge study of the impact of IRRI’s rice breeding work in SE Asia. The press release has the key numbers:
- “Southeast Asian rice farmers are harvesting an extra US$1.46 billion worth of rice a year as a result of rice breeding.”
- “…IRRI’s research on improving rice varietal yield between 1985 and 2009 … [boosted] … rice yield by up to 13%.”
- “…IRRI’s improved rice varieties increased farmers’ returns by US$127 a hectare in southern Vietnam, $76 a hectare in Indonesia, and $52 a hectare in the Philippines.”
- “The annual impact of IRRI’s research in these three countries alone exceeded IRRI’s total budget since it was founded in 1960.”
But I guess the figure the Australians were really after is that in the final table:
A pretty decent return.
Good to see the pioneering work of IRRI (and others) in documenting pedigree information in a usable way recognized — and indeed made use of. And good to see the International Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER) and its use of the International Treaty’s multilateral access and benefit sharing system highlighted in the study as a model for germplasm exchange and use. Of course one would have loved to see the genebank’s role in producing the impact also recognized, rather than sort of tacitly taken for granted as usual, but maybe the data can be used to bring that out more in a follow-up.
I see another couple of opportunities for further research, actually. There is little in the study about the genetic nature of the improved varieties that are having all this impact. To what extent can their pedigrees be traced back to crop wild relatives, say? And, indeed, how many different parent lines have been involved in their development, and how genetically different were they? That will surely to some extent determine how sustainable these impressive impacts are likely to be.
Nibbles: IRRI impact, Peruvian food, Nutritional strategy, Ethnobiology, Street food forum, Mulefoot hogs, Polyculture, Cheeses, Asimina triloba, Protected areas
- Australians justify their investment in IRRI. Now that’s what I call impact!
- Peruvian cuisine takes over the world. But, as Eve points out elsewhere, “We have a thousand kinds of potatoes in Peru, thousands” is not hyperbole.
- Jess scoops the world with a nutrition strategy for the masses.
- Indians need sorghum and millets to keep healthy.
- Ethnobiology: The Book.
- Talking about street food. Hold the mayo.
- Not all pigs are cloven-hoofed. A tetrapod zoologist explains syndactyly.
- Polyculture; is it all Pollyanna? Science will answer.
- A flavour map of British cheeses. You know you need it.
- Foraging for pawpaws. Not those pawpaws.
- Bird areas apps. CWRs next?
Money for shiny new rope?
You might think that when Africa’s “most important, but neglected native crops” get $40 million of support we would be all over the story like a rash. So why weren’t we? ((It isn’t just because hard information is surprisingly difficult to find, although UC Davis might want to fix the link on one press release. Likewise, it would be really handy if The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) actually linked to the “commitments” delivered at it’s jamboree last week. Colouring them blue and underlining them is apparently of no significance. And it isn’t just because, like our friends at Crops for the Future, we can’t figure out what some of these crops actually are.)) Mostly it is because it is really hard to find anything positive to say, and we don’t want to sound like nay-sayers.
The gist of the “commitment” Improving Africa’s Neglected Food Crops, which the Clinton Global Initiative ascribes to NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, ((Find it there if you can.)) is that private companies and public bodies have teamed up to build, among other things, a biotechnology centre in Ghana. According to UC Davis, the centre:
[W]ill sequence the genome — an organism’s entire collection of genes — for each species and make that information freely available to scientists around the world. That information will then be applied, using the most advanced breeding techniques and technologies, to develop new varieties of crops that are more nutritious, produce higher yields and are more tolerant of environmental stresses, such as drought.
The proposed centre may even be the same one referred to in a SciDev.net piece, although that one “will focus research on cassava, cocoyam, sweet potato and yam”.
Either way, I have to ask whether complete genome sequences are what poor African farmers really need right now. I realize that genomes are groovy, and very scientific, and will undoubtedly deliver great improvements in five years. Right now, though, here’s a small idea of what actual smallholder farmers want. Yesterday morning — I promise — Nduse Mailu left this comment to a post from March 2007:
i stumbled on this blog abd it seems quite awesome to a farmer like me.i currently have about 500 trees and i am in the process of increasing to 4000 and i am seeking guidance on whether to continue growing kienyenji style that is planting seeds from my own fruits or profesionaly that is buying guide me please and to Victor how are your trees doing what are ur challenges if any?
As it happens, the announcement of the new project singles out a tree for special mention.
[T]he consortium has already begun to sequence the (sic) Faidherbia albida, a type of acacia tree that can be used for improving soil nitrogen content and preventing erosion. The tree also has edible seeds and, unlike most trees, sheds its leaves during the rainy season so that it can be grown among field crops without shading them.
Right now, then, what do you suppose Mr Mailu needs? The sequence of Faidherbia albida (aka African winterthorn) with a promise of great improvements to come? Or a reliable supply of seedlings of good enough provenance and the knowledge to get the most out of them? ((Here‘s a start.))
I have no desire to stop Ghana and the rest of Africa developing the skills to sequence whatever they want, although I do question the cost effectiveness of doing the sequencing that way. But why is it even possible to talk of raising $40 million for that when farmers like Mr Mailu are posting comments here looking for very simple advice?
Here’s one possible reason.
“In order to really solve problems, and to get people to join, you have to break them down to their most transparent and simple pieces.”
So says Rajiv Shah, “the young gun fixing USAID” in an interview he gave Fortune magazine. And that idea — simplify, simplify, simplify — Shah got from his mentor Bill Gates, who said:
“The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.”
Uh-huh.
Now, you can take two approaches to the kind of complexity that faces Mr Mailu and millions like him. You could say that providing comprehensive extension services to millions of poor farmers is impossibly complex because the farmers all live in different places and have different farming systems and need different advice. How much simpler to sequence orphan crops.
Or you could say that sequencing orphan crops is unutterably complex, because each crop is likely to be different and to require different tweaks to its genome to enhance its performance in different places, and in the end you’re going to need massive investments in extension services to get the improved crops out to the farmers and ensure that they know how to make good use of them. How much simpler to offer farmers good practical advice now.
How complex is that?