Our friend Danny over at Rurality has been on a bit of a rare livestock breeds hobbyhorse lately. First he noted that the UK’s new biodiversity indicators include consideration of native livestock breeds but not crop landraces. And that prompted him to sing the praises of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Quite right too.
Melaku Worede speaks
And this is what the veteran crop conservationist says:
Gene banks like the SADC gene bank, the Svalbard gene bank, and many others, focus only on collecting and preserving. How can you think you are conserving diversity when the very source upon which the seeds depend is not included? You can capture only so much, and in 100 years it will be useless because the planet will have changed. Perhaps you will be able to incorporate some genetic material into varieties and release them, but who is going to benefit from that? That is the big question.
I know what he means. You need to conserve the process, as well as the product. But I have another big question. If the world — read the climate — is changing as fast as many now fear, don’t you need the insurance policy that genebanks provide all the more?
Nibbles: Drugs, Horticulture, Nutritional composition, Health, Rice, Coconut
- “Coffee and cocoa yes, coca no.”
- 1st All Africa Horticulture Congress.
- Carotenoid and vitamin content of Micronesian atoll foods: Pandanus (Pandanus tectorius) and garlic pear (Crataeva speciosa) fruit.
- A Family Year: a 5-part television series focusing on the health and environmental threats facing families in Russia and Central Europe.
- Natbar Sarangi: one man Indian rice genebank.
- Climate change “might hinder coconut production“.
Bush wild tomatoes
Someone called James Sultana emailed us to ask: “Where can get some bush wild tomatoes”.
I was forced to reply in pedant mode:
Could you be a little bit more specific? What do you mean by a “bush
wild tomato”? A wild relative of the tomato? Or some other species
(maybe Australian?) that goes by that name?
Alas, Jim hadn’t entered his email correctly in our contact form, so my reply bounced right back. So, if you’re reading this, Jim, answer the question and we’ll do our best to help. And the rest of you, what might a “bush wild tomato” be?
Nibbles: French fries, Maple syrup, Cooking heirlooms, Salmon, Ancient booze, Rice domestication
- India finally arrives, gets french fries.
- Sophisticated urbanites tap maples.
- Raise a rare heirloom breed. Then cook it.
- “Some might be hoping he will predict a return to the glory days of the “truly unique” strain of Petitcodiac salmon, which now likely exists only in a gene bank at the Mactaquac Fish Hatchery at this point.”
- Boffins identify world’s first cocktail.
- How people turned from nut collectors into rice farmers in China.
- Hungarians sacrificed dogs.