Genebanks

January 21, 2011

An overlooked global public good

Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, is asking

donors to move away from the model of subsisidised fertilisers and seeds – which he calls “private goods”, to supporting “public goods” such as better infrastructure, strengthening local markets, ensuring access to credit and building storage capabilities.

Alas, I don’t think “storage capabilities” refers to genebanks here. No word on whether Prof. de Schutter would in fact include international crop germplasm collections in that list, but the World Bank certainly does.…

January 19, 2011January 19, 2011

A new rice for Mozambique

Scidev.net has an interesting report on how breeders at IRRI and the Africa Rice Center, working with scientists and farmers in Mozambique, have developed a new variety of rice that offers almost six times the average yield and is more tolerant of diseases. The new variety is currently still known as IR80482-64-3-3-3 and has just entered Mozambique’s formal seed sector for bulking up and eventual supply to farmers.

That’s good news for Mozambique and farmers, although it isn’t the end of the story:

“For irrigated and rainfed lowland ecosystems we can produce rice varieties that combine high yield, resistance to major diseases and superior grain quality accepted by local and international markets,” said Surapong Sarkarung, an IRRI rice breeder based in Mozambique.

But he added that drawbacks could be: the low capacity of the seed sector to produce certified seed; lack of milling equipment to produce high standard milled rice and lack of credit to support farmers to buy inputs such as seed, fertilisers and machinery.

And of course we are duty bound to ask: will any effort be made to collect Mozambique’s existing varieties before the new variety sweeps them away? Or maybe that’s already been done.

January 17, 2011January 17, 2011

Nibbles: Genebank, Rice, State of the World, Experiments, Lathyrus, Malaria and lactase persistence, Advice, CWR, Feed

The Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity has been up to something, but it is hard to be sure what.
IRRI is also up to something — Green super rice — but again it is hard to be sure what. Not golden at any rate.
CIAT picks its favourites from the State of the World 2011 report.
More than anyone has any right to want to know about the history and future of agricultural experimentation, but fascinating nonetheless.
The nutritive value and toxicity of grasspea and its relatives.
Milk may or may not provide some protection from malaria.
Nutrition advice, filtered for you. Jeremy sez “I like No. 6.”
Irish launch crop wild relatives website.
The feed quality of crop residues gets the treatment.

January 13, 2011January 13, 2011

Nibbles: Heiser & Chambers, Quinoa, Books, Grafting eggplants, Vitamin D, Pitaya, Cassava, Beetroot, Worldwatch, BBSRC

Celebrating Charles Heiser and Bob Chambers.
Quinoa coming into its own in Bolivia.
Earthscan and Bioversity International team up for new Issues in Agricultural Biodiversity book series.
Crop wild relatives not just useful to breeders, eggplant edition.
Vitamin D 101 in pictures.
Improving pitaya.
Cassava production trends in Africa in 28 slides. Twenty slides too many, but it’s always good to have the data.
Beetroot’s colour deconstructed.
Worldwatch’s 2011 State of the World was released yesterday. Gives a “compelling look at the global food crisis, with particular emphasis on global innovations that can help solve a worldwide problem.” At $19.95 a pop. But supporting material available. Here comes the commentary.
The genebank at the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council gets its 15 minutes of fame.

January 12, 2011January 12, 2011

Millets go back home

You’ll have to take my word for it, unless you read Chinese, or can make head or tail out of the Google translation of the announcement on the Environmental Information E-News website, but it looks like a number of accessions of Setaria millet from the USDA collection have been “repatriated” to some Taiwanese hilltribe communities who had lost them over the years. Me, I’d have asked for stuff from other places too while I was at it, what with climate change and all, but anyway. There will apparently be more on the project on the website of the Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, but again you’ll need some language skills to get the full benefit. Prof. Warren H.J. Kuo is the man in charge. The word is that Taiwan’s Public Television Service will upload something in English to youtube very soon. Looking forward to that.