Category: Funding

Posted on

A fifty-year Farm Bill

When we nibbled an article from The Land Institute’s Stan Cox a couple of days ago it prompted a heartfelt outburst against the “holier than thou organic only everyting else be dammed mindset”. So I’m wondering what Anastasia and others will make of a Q&A in today’s Washington Post. Three of the wisest men in “alternative” agriculture in the US — Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry and Fred Kirschenmann — were in Washington to promote an alternative Farm Bill, one that takes a long-term view and that “values not only yields but also local ecosystems, healthy food and rural communities”. The Post took the opportunity to get some answers to pressing questions, such as “Washington doesn’t think in 50-year increments. How do you sell this?”.

Jackson: You sell it the same way as global warming or population growth. Washington thinks it’s going to deal with the global warming problem in 50 years? We will have this if we get cracking.

Kirschenmann: Because of our election cycles, you’re right. People tend to think in terms of two-year, four-year or six-year cycles. But I think the effort to deal with climate change is starting to change with that, because they know they can’t deal with climate change on that timeline. They have to extend the horizon. So we think the time is right to add agriculture to that.

I’d like to think they can do it, but I’m not optimistic.

Posted on

Senate discusses wild rice

Good news for wild rice breeders, from Washington, DC of all places.

Funding for wild rice and forestry research cleared a Senate committee hurdle last week, said U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn.

The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved $5.5 million in agriculture and economic development initiations that include new product research for wood and wild rice research.

A $300,000 appropriation would develop new and hardier strains of wild rice, Klobuchar said. It would fund research to tackle some of the most critical problems for wild rice producers, including shattering resistance, disease resistance, germplasm retention and seed storage.

Wild rice is the only cereal grain native to North America. Minnesota is the nation’s second-largest producer of wild rice, with production concentration near the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, the Democratic senator said.

I’d really like to have heard the august US Senators debate the ins and outs of that 300 large. Maybe one of them explained what “germplasm retention” is.

Posted on

Rice breeding gets a boost … and needs it

The Hindu reports that the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute (TRRI) is now involved in the Cereal System Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), a project funded by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and launched in January. One of the interesting, but arcane, aspects of The Hindu’s coverage is the use of the phrase “mega collaborative project” to describe CSISA. That phrase may resonate with people involved in the CGIAR’s latest effort to reinvent itself. The other is that “proven technologies will be delivered to the farmers and the pipeline technologies will be evaluated in Adaptive Research Trials for fine tuning and delivery”.

Will those proven technologies include the use of biodiversity other than as a source of interesting traits for the pipeline technologists?

We said originally that CSISA “deserves to be a success” but we’re still wondering how innovative the approach will be.

Rice is clearly going to need all the help it can get to continue to feed people in the next few decades. SciDev.net reports on a recent publication from scientists in Bangladesh predicting a 20% drop in yields to 2050 and a 50% drop to 2075. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the figures, but I can say that the world needs to wake up to the fact that changes are coming, that they are going to require flexibility and adaptability, and that it is not too late to start preparing.

Posted on

Will the “Green Revolution” Ever Hit Africa?

No.

Approximately two-thirds of Africa’s population labors on small, dusty farms, frequently failing to produce enough food to feed their families. Europe, North America, and Asia got their “Green Revolutions” and the ensuing productivity growth allowed small farmers to send their kids off to school in the big cities. Africa completely missed the boat.

A long article in the New York Times Freakonomics blog by Dwyer Gunn asks “Will the Green Revolution Ever Hit Africa“? It’s long, and very straightforward. While giving the naysayers a hearing, the article is firmly on the side of GMOs, fertilizer and irrigation. Oh, and forward contracts to supply the Gates Foundation’s 1 Purchase for Progress program, cooked up so that the World Food Programme can buy emergency rations locally, injecting some cash into local economies. Because the two thirds of Africa’s people who labour “on small, dusty farms, frequently failing to produce enough food to feed their families” are going to be entering into forward contracts with WFP? Do me a favour.

I started reading the article in full optimistic flood; here was somebody who understood the issue, really understood it. I finished very, very disappointed. Round up the usual suspects. Luckily there were only three comments, and only two really annoyed me, 2 so here’s my suggestion. Go there, but leave your comments, if you have any, here. Or, at the very least, in both places.