- Roast pig in Bangkok. Wish I’d known about this place when I visited a few weeks back.
- Do you have Xanthosoma diversity and are you willing to share it? Mary would like to hear from you.
- Amazing diversity at an LA farmers market.
- Social media in the CG, including us!
More on that new Turkish genebank
You may remember a post a few weeks back on a new genebank being planned by the Turkish government, about which I had some questions. Well, Agriculture & Rural Affairs Minister Mehmet Mehdi Eker will kick off building work on July 30. ((Actually the article says June 30 but its use of the future tense makes me think that’s a typo.)) In a statement, the Ministry said:
…we need to assess the current situation in order to protect our biological diversity and genetic sources. There are about 10 thousand plant species and nearly 3 thousand endemic plant species in Turkey. Also, Turkey is considered a center to find genes of a number of plant species which are of great importance for biological researches. Therefore, we decided to establish a seed gene bank in Turkey. The bank will contain genes of 250 thousand plant species.
I suppose that means 250,000 accessions. It sounds to me like this genebank may concentrate on wild species, unlike the one in Izmir. But I’m not sure. Maybe someone out there will give us more details.
Draft 2nd State of the World’s PGR is out
I should really have pointed to this earlier. The draft Second Report on the State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOTW2) was presented for review to the Fourth Session of the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group (ITWG) on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture held at FAO headquarters, Rome on 15-17 July 2009. The First State of the World’s PGRFA report is of course more than ten years old.
All the documents relevant to the ITWG meeting are online, including the draft SOTW2 report, as a large pdf. The idea is that, after whatever changes the ITWG recommended are taken into account, the final version of the SOTW2 will be presented to the Twelfth Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Rome, 18-23 October 2009) for endorsement.
The process of developing SOTW2 has been tortuous, and no doubt far from perfect, but this does constitute the best data we have on what’s happening in plant genetic resources conservation and use worldwide.
I’m afraid I can’t resist quoting some headline numbers on the ex situ side, but there are also chapters on in situ, use, national programmes and legislation, regional and international collaboration, access and benefit sharing the full monty.
Chapter 3 shows that the total number of accessions conserved ex situ world-wide has increased by approximately 20% (1.4 million) since 1996, reaching 7.4 million. It is estimated, however, that less than 30% of this total are distinct accessions (1.9 – 2.2 million). During the same period, new collecting accounted for about 220,000 accessions.
And again:
There are now more than 1,750 individual genebanks worldwide, about 130 of which hold more than 10,000 accessions each. There are also substantial ex situ collections in botanical gardens, of which there are over 2,500 around the world. Genebanks are located on all continents, but there are relatively fewer in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Among the largest collections are those that have been built up over more than 35 years by the CGIAR and are held in trust for the world community. In 1994 the Centres signed agreements with FAO bringing their collections within the International Network of Ex Situ Collections. These were subsequently brought under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2006 (ITPGRFA – see Chapter 7).
Still a lot of room for rationalization. Here’s a map of the localities of those 130 large genebanks, which is also available on the WIEWS website (click to enlarge).
Nibbles: Climate change, Rice, Maize, PGR, Bananas
- Dept. of Silver Linings: “U.S. farmers and foresters could earn more money from carbon contracts than they pay in higher costs from legislation to control greenhouse gases.”
- Dept. of Black Clouds: “Climate change and the risk of violent conflict in the Middle East.”
- Rapid-growing rice reduces famine in Bangladesh.
- Yields of maize grown in rotation are higher and more stable than those grown exclusively.
- Latest Plant Genetic Resources newsletter online. Most accessible here.
- Banana scientist bags award for field genebank.
Ex situ redux
After a period in which ex situ conservation has been downplayed by the conservation community (except for agrobiodiversity where it is still the main conservation strategy) ex situ conservation is now widely accepted as an increasingly necessary complement to in situ forms of conservation (IUCN 2002; BGCI 2000), especially protected areas (e.g. Abanades García & al. 2007).
That’s from a new report for the Council of Europe entitled “The impacts of climate change on plant species in Europe,” prepared by Prof. Vernon Heywood of the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, with contributions by Dr Alastair Culham. You’ll find it on p. 39 after a very thorough review of the issues. Nice to see such a bold statement. The report is one of several prepared for the Group of Experts on Biodiversity and Climate Change of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats. Thanks to Danny for the tip.