- FAO sets data free. About time.
- Presentation on drought risk and preparedness around the world. Nice maps.
- A Facebook for seeds?
- The diversity of Jerusalem artichoke. In France.
- Coffee certification 101.
- Nice plug for SPC’s Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees.
- The fig of choice in San Francisco.
- Back to traditional rice varieties in India. But forward to new pigeonpea varieties in Malawi. Go figure.
- Navajo tea. Would love to try it.
- “The mixed (east-west) affiliation of Mongolian cattle parallels the mixed affiliation of Mongolians themselves.”
- Lancet article mentions Lois Englberger and her Go Local work in the Pacific in context of diabetes epidemic in Asia-Pacific.
- Edible art.
- More on bringing back the aurochs. Does anyone really want one, though?
- Great variety of rare and exotic poultry breeds. Temptation to pun smuttily averted, mostly.
Livestock genomes not enough
You may remember we nibbled a Science paper entitled Time to Tap Africa’s Livestock Genomes which got a lot of traction in the press a few weeks ago. It has also generated an interesting discussion at the DAD-Net forum, set off by the following contribution by Dr Ilse Köhler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, which she has kindly allowed us to reproduce here.
Congratulations on this article – it is certainly great to have these issues raised in a high profile scientific journal! However, after reading the summary about it presented in the BBC interview, I am a bit worried about the notion of the need to “tap Africa’s animal genetic resources” before they have become extinct. For one, they are already being “tapped” by African pastoralists — and have been tapped for hundreds or thousands of years — to enable survival in inhospitable areas. One crucial aspect of pastoralist livestock is the ability to walk for ever and thereby access and then ingest and metabolize vegetation that would otherwise be of no use to humans. Their contribution to food security is thus enormous. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no scientific research has ever focused on “walkability.”
But what we urgently need to realise is that many of the wonderful characteristics of African and other pastoralist livestock are not a question of genetics, but of learned behaviour, as Saverio Kraetli has shown in his seminal studies of WoDaaBe cattle breeders in Niger. It is therefore a fallacy to believe that we can “fix” certain weaknesses of Western or high-performance breeds by introducing the genes of African livestock into them.
This does not make it less urgent to conserve pastoralist livestock, as food security for people in marginal areas remains a major concern. In their Biocultural Community Protocol, the Samburu have testified how replacement of the Red Massai sheep with Dorper has undermined their drought resistance.
African livestock breeds and their unique traits can only be conserved in living systems, using agroecosystem approaches as spelled out in one of the Strategic Priorities for Action of the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources. Consequently we need enabling policies for livestock keepers, much more than additional research at the genome level — which would be unable to address complex traits such as walkability.
Nibbles: Arachis, Hay, Flax, Green Revolution, Zea genomics
- Rethinking peanut genetic diversity. All you need is a new marker.
- Saving the English hay meadow. Hey, there’s a few crop wild relatives in there, apart from anything else!
- 30,000 year-old fibres not flax after all?
- Today’s modifier for “Green Revolution” is “old-fashioned.”
- Maize evolution is a tale of chromosome doubling and subsequent divergence of the two sets.
Nibbles: Allium, Desertification and livestock, Striga, Emmer, Hawaii, Almond, Seeds at FAO, Cassava in central Africa, Seed sculpture, Biofortification, Millets, Lunatrick pea
- Botany Photo of the Day is an onion wild relative! Pretty.
- More on that livestock-can-help-reduce-desertification thing, this time from Scientific American.
- Breeding Striga-resistant sorghum. Whatever it takes to protect local beer, boffin-dudes!
- Emmer wheat reviewed to bits.
- No passport data for your barley? Fear not.
- Rachel Laudan ably defends Hawaiian food.
- Origins of almond traced to Iran. Not for the first time.
- Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: A Commons Perspective. Presentation from our friends at FAO.
- Presentation on the untapped potential of cassava in the Great Lakes region of Africa. One of many from CIAT lately. Check out their stuff on beans too.
- The Seed Cathedral of Shanghai. Thanks to those public awareness wizards at Kew.
- Big shindig on biofortification. Be there, or be malnourished.
- Times of India bangs the drum for nutritious millets.
- Yet more loveliness from serious amateur pea breeder Rebsie Fairholm.
Nibbles: Sugarcane breeding, Caterpillar mushroom, Saharan honeybees, Vodka taste, Cotton genetic resources, African savannah ag, Organic videos
- Fiji looking for better sugarcane. Not a moment too soon, with the EU subsidies going and all.
- Collecting the very valuable caterpillar mushroom in China’s protected areas. Illegal, but whachagonnado?
- The honeybees of the Saharan oases are isolated. Well, actually, not all of them, which I guess qualifies as a surprise.
- Can you tell different vodka brands apart? Here’s why. Maybe. Sounds a bit flaky to me.
- A global review of cotton genetic resources.
- Ploughing up the African savannah is gonna solve all our problems, apparently.
- Organic Seed Alliance launches a youtube channel. Oh goody, there’s how to breed organic carrots!