Late last year I blogged about what an early warning system for erosion of agricultural diversity might look like. I was thinking of an active reporting system, but today Conservation Maven reminds me of a paper published a few months ago that suggests that a more passive approach might also be possible. The authors ask the question: Can researchers who are interested in ecological monitoring tap into … increased flows of information by “mining” the internet to detect “early-warning” signs that may signal abrupt ecological changes? The paper is behind a paywall, but I’ve ordered it. Once I read it, I’ll report back whether web crawlers have a future in genetic erosion monitoring.
Reviewing the use and usefulness of cereal landraces
From Eliseu Bettencourt, one of the authors of the paper concerned.
The paper “Cereal landraces for sustainable agriculture. A review” was recently made available on-line at Agronomy for Sustainable Development, though behind a paywall. The paper version will be published soon.
The paper is co-authored by eighteen authors pulling together diverse backgrounds and expertises.
The review addresses the current status and prospects for cereals landraces in the context of sustainable agriculture, discussing the place of landraces in the origin of modern cereal crops and breeding of elite cereal cultivars, the importance of on-farm and ex situ diversity conservation; how modern genotyping approaches can help both conservation and exploitation; the importance of different phenotyping approaches; and whether legal issues associated with landrace marketing and utilisation need addressing.
The paper also deals with the current status and potential for the improved deployment and exploitation of landraces, and incorporation of their positive qualities into new cultivars or populations for more sustainable agricultural production. In particular, their potential as sources of novel disease and abiotic stress resistance genes or combination of genes if deployed appropriately, of phytonutrients accompanied with optimal micronutrient concentrations which can help alleviate aging-related and chronic diseases, and of nutrient use efficiency traits.
The paper is structured in 12 chapters, namely: Introduction; History of cereal landraces; Diversity and germplasm collections; Genebanks and conservation of cereal landraces; Genotyping and phenotyping; Nutrient uptake and utilisation; Nutrition and quality; Biotic and abiotic stress resistance and tolerance; Breeding: conversion of landraces into modern cultivars; Participatory breeding; Legal issues; Conclusions. The paper also counts with an extensive list of bibliographic sources.
The main findings of the paper can be summarised as: A lot of recent research effort has gone into collecting, organising, studying and analysing cereal landraces with a primary goal being to incorporate their positive qualities in new cultivars or populations for a more sustainable agricultural production, particularly in response to recent climate changes.
A major part of this valuable landrace diversity is conserved in the world’s genebanks network and should be exploited systematically for traits such as quality and specific adaptations to stress environments. However, the available genetic variation in adaptive responses to soil and climatic conditions conserved in landraces is little understood, and even less used. More uniform and user-friendly documentation about collection and characterisation of landraces, either morphologically or with molecular tools, is needed to access this variation more effectively. Genebanks should aim at adopting a common concept of landraces and plan special inventories for them. The level of diversity should be monitored during their conservation so that the original level of variation is maintained. More studies are needed in order to investigate if their long-term maintenance by farmers resulted in increasing genetic variation.
New high-throughput genotyping platforms and phenotyping data in common databases will enable powerful association genetic approaches to be used for improvement and direct deployment of landrace resources.
The renewed focus on cereal landraces for breeding purposes is also a response to some negative consequences of modern agriculture and conventional breeding, such as the liberal use of high inputs, the loss of genetic diversity and the stagnation of yields in less favourable areas.
Further enhancement of productivity and stability is achieved through practicing “non-stop selection” within landraces across the marginal production environments, to exploit the constantly released by the genome useful adaptive variation.
The review highlights the value of landraces as resources for the future sustainability of cereal crop production, the methods to enhance their genetic makeup and avoid seed degradation and emphasises the level of co-ordination and resourcing needed to realise the great potential of cereal landraces.
Patenting systems good for vegetable diversity
Here’s a turn-up for the books. Our friends at the CAS-IP blog link to a couple of papers that examine the influence of intellectual property rights on vegetable diversity. I’m going to come right out and admit that I haven’t read the papers. But like CAS-IP, I’m intrigued by this quote:
More than 16% of all vegetable varieties that have ever been patented were commercially available in 2004.
Or, to put it another way, less than 84% of all vegetable varieties that have ever been patented were no longer available in 2004.
The primary argument for maintaining crop diversity 1 is based on the need to maintain a safety net of genetic diversity, to have a broad supply of genes available to breeders who can create more productive, weather-hardy, insect resistant, fungus resistant, and better-tasting crops. … If the meaning of diversity is linked to the survival of ancient varieties, then the lessons of the twentieth century are grim. If it refers instead to the multiplicity of present choices available to breeders, then the story is more hopeful.
The crucial part, of course, is how to measure diversity, and how you interpret it. I deliberately snipped out what I consider the money quote from the passage above. Here it is:
We hope our findings stimulate a discussion about the proper measure for that diversity.
Off you go. Discuss away.
Nibbles: Old lentil, Cassava pests, Gates the reconciler, Gardeners
- 4000 year old lentil sprouts.
- It looks bad for cassava in SE Asia.
- Bill Gates speaks out on sustainability and productivity.
- “Gardeners must unite to save Britain’s wildlife.” We say: what about Britain’s landraces?
A different view of European seed regulations
In a recent post about genetic erosion I asked one of the commenters, Andre, two questions:
1: What is the justification for a single set of seed regulations designed for and with large commercial farmers, which does not meet other growers’ needs?
2: Why, in your view, is Europe’s position preferable?
He was kind enough to send this reply.
There are three questions in the first one.
1. Is there a single set of seed regulations? The answer is yes and no. No as regards the underlying policies; yes, on balance, as regards the technicalities. Any country that wishes to partake in the international seed trade will adopt the standards and procedures recommended by OECD and ISTA. And , of course, any country considering regulations for the domestic market (and any consultant working for such a country) will draw inspiration from existing proven systems, and this leads to a certain degree of uniformity. Technicalities are also largely defined by agricultural biology and technology.
2. Are seed regulations designed for and with large commercial farmers? The answer is again no. Seed regulations are designed in the public interest. Their fundamental objective is that farmers, small and large, can reliably source high-quality seed, which is a basic element of agricultural and food security..
It is fair to say that seed regulations – both major components (seed control and variety listing) where they exist – benefit small farmers much more than large ones. Small farmers have indeed much more to loose than big ones from spurious seeds, or from defective varieties. Big farmers also have more options.
3. Do seed regulations fail to meet the needs of some growers? If you consider a farmer who is determined to produce seed for sale outside the legally defined parameters in systems which only allow trade in certified seeds, then the answer is yes. If you consider the European system, with limitative lists of varieties authorised for sale, and a grower who is adamant at growing a non-listed variety, then the answer is also yes. If you consider the needs of the vast majority of growers, then the answer is no.
The regulatory framework is wrongly blamed for a number of things, and three points will be made below. The basic premise is that the regulations are not cast in stone, and are easily adaptable, even though the lawmaker or the administrative authority may sometimes be a little slow (this is a criticism that one can in fairness make in respect of the adaptation of the system to the needs of agricultural biodiversity management).
1. There is no fundamental or conceptual exclusion of non-uniform varieties. European variety catalogues have listed, and may still list, population varieties (landraces or ecotypes) next to varieties that have been made uniform to the higher standard applicable to, say, F1 hybrids. The OECD schemes for the varietal certification of oil-seeds moving in the international trade provide for the possible inclusion of “bred varieties” and “local varieties”, whereas those for cereals use a definition of “variety” that is akin to that of “cultivar” (and does not specifically refer to uniformity).
There is, of course, a trend towards more uniformity as ‘modern’ varieties replace the more traditional ones (this has been the case for many outbreeding vegetables with the advent of F1 hybrids); and sometimes towards less, for instance with varietal associations of CMS lines and pollen parents… The world of agriculture is complex. The underlying principle here is that the standards acknowledge that which breeders and seed producers can reasonably do – and ought to do for the benefit of farmers – rather than set administratively defined requirements.
2. The relation with biodiversity issues is not an easy one. Basically, however, the regulatory framework, particularly variety listing, is a record-keeper rather than an actor of the obsolescence of varieties and their eventual disappearance from the marketplace. Countries with a thriving agriculture have large lists of varieties (over 100 winter wheats in Germany, and seven spelts…), and varieties can still be around when they are multiplied on some two hectares in the case of cereals. The system is thus quite friendly to varieties with an anecdotal presence on the marketplace.
The introduction of variety listing in the United Kingdom in the run-up to the country’s accession to the European Union, in particular, gave rise to a polemic on genetic erosion (the famous argument of the genetic wipe-out by the stroke of a pen). The fact is that, after years of laisser faire, the authorities conducted careful comparative trials and essentially eliminated synonyms. This, by the way, speaks volumes on the usefulness, if not necessity, of an elaborate framework.
On the unarguably positive side, authorities that conduct DUS tests and VCU trials maintain large reference collections (16,000 varieties from 120 species in the case of the French GEVES) and thus contribute to conservation. Through their extensive multi-location trials (1,400, with some 100,000 plots in the case of GEVES) and biochemical and technological tests, they also contribute to characterisation.
On the positive side too, the testing system creates a single platform for data generated on varieties produced by all kinds of breeders, small and large, for a reasonable price. This has contributed to the maintenance of a network of small and medium-size breeding enterprises, with diversified breeding programmes. There is a recent trend towards concentration, but even there, many entities maintain a good deal of their original identity.
3. There is no link with plant variety protection. As a matter of fact, the UPOV Convention requires that the two systems be independent.
To combine the three points above, the source for de Schutter’s following statement is a complete mystery: “First, seed regulations (national seed certification schemes) may only catalogue commercial varieties which are PVP protected (since only these present the stability and uniformity required for cataloguing), and either explicitly exclude the trade of non-PVP-protected seeds or lead to de facto exclusion of traditional varieties, since the latter are normally not genetically homogeneous enough to meet the requirements for approval and certification.”
As to the second question, I do not think that one can simply posit that Europe’s position – with a catalogue system that basically prohibits the marketing of non-registered varieties and a certification system which basically prohibits the sale of ‘ordinary’ seed– is preferable.
To move up one step in the comment which is the subject of this response, it is difficult to adduce the caveat emptor principle for seeds – particularly so in relation to small farmers and much more so in developing countries – and standard consumer protection legislation – even in countries where it is developed – is close to ineffective. A major challenge in laisser faire systems is, first, to have a clear definition of the features and qualities that were expected from the seed and, second, to prove that a crop failure was due to the seed.
The European catalogue system is the result of a co-evolution with overall agricultural policy, public institutions backing the system, the plant variety and seed industry and, last but not least, mentalities leading to a reasonable degree of acceptance of the system. “Reasonable” is required here if one considers, for instance, the fairly large body of opinion among farmers in favour of farm-saved seed.
In developing countries, a structured, effective and reliable variety and seed system can only be established gradually, particularly for staple crops. Seed legislation must not only allow, but also promote the transition. The European-style system cannot do that. But this does not mean that it should be excluded altogether; on the contrary, it could be entirely appropriate for specific crops and types of varieties (the legislation on genetically modified varieties is essentially leading to the same degree of control over varieties than the European catalogue system; same for the OECD schemes in relation to seed for export).
Evidently, a strategy of choice is to move the ‘informal’ seed system into the tracks of a ‘formal’ one. There is little to nothing on the promotion of a ‘formal’ seed system in de Schutter’s report, whose recommendations are in this respect utterly counter-productive.