Category: Genetic erosion

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Fruit genebank follow-up

We’ve been trying to keep an eye on the threat to the fruit tree genebank built up by the Horticulture and Agroforestry Research Programme (HARP) in Jharkhand State, India, with limited success.

A quick recap: State parliamentarians plan to force HARP off its land and bulldoze the field genebank of more than 5000 trees, to build themselves fancy bungalows.

The Indian press has mostly been concerned with the whiff of corruption. A couple of days after the original report, the chief Minister of Jharkhand was busy denying that any decision had been taken over the land; the Indian Express quoted documents that suggested otherwise. A week later, the paper had more documents, claiming that the HARP land was worth about 25,000 times more than some previous land that had been earmarked for the bungalows but rejected by the parliamentarians. The research station was more or less ignored, save for a claim by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, in a letter to Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, that scientists had been threatened, an incident Pawar described as “very sad” and “objectionable”.

Then came a bombshell, a leaked email from Cary Fowler, the Executive Secretary of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, to the Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, HARP’s parent organisation, who serves on the Board of the Trust. ((Extensive investigations have failed to uncover any evidence that the leak emanated from the Trust.)) According to the Indian Express, Fowler asked informally whether “something can be done”.

And this, for us, is the nub of the matter.

Politicians enriching themselves by taking advantage of their position is business as usual, and a matter for the local electorate. And believing that fancy bungalows are more valuable than a collection of tropical fruit diversity is further confirmation that these politicians are nothing out of the ordinary.

As far as I’m concerned, they can have their land and their bungalows. That’s between them, their voters and the local constabulary.

What I want to know is: what are the plans for the collection? It takes time to graft trees and to strike cuttings, if, indeed, those are feasible options. It takes time to find new land. Is there time? Or, as the headlines insinuate, are the bulldozers already moving in on the land? ((There seems to be one local blogger who might be able to dig up answers, but no way of contacting him. So if you see this, Ashok K.Jha or Mithila Darpan, get in touch with us.))

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On the ground in West Bengal

In West Bengal, a penniless activist is preserving 542 local varieties of rice on a teeny farm. It’s an amazing story, as Josh Kearns tells it. He visited Debal Deb’s research station and blogged about it here.

Folk traditions that were widely practiced until just a few generations ago, such as valuing seeds in non-monetary terms and freely sharing resources, have been sacrificed under market culture. Since Debal gives his seeds away for free, he runs the risk of their not being appropriately valued; whereas, if a farmer takes out a huge loan to buy Monsanto’s HYV seeds and they fail to produce a satisfactory yield (or fail altogether, which happens frequently), he blames himself for being a lousy farmer rather than Monsanto for ripping him off.

Just one of the problems of taking care of crop biodiversity outside the mainstream. Kearns does not say that Deb is no ordinary agroconservationist. He’s a friend of a friend, as it happens, and has a PhD from Calcutta University and several published papers and a book to his name.

Still, Kearns reports that against the odds, Debal Deb is succeeding. And while that is good news, I do wonder what the next stage is. OK, so he and his crew are conserving and describing the varieties (to forestall a rights-grab). But there must be ways both to support that work and to make use of the biodiversity to improve lives.

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Perennial wheat a little bit closer

Almost a year ago I blogged about a trial of perennial wheat being planted at Texas A&M University by Dr Charlie Rush. Well, the results are in now, and they’re encouraging. According to a press release, the grazing (they do that with wheat in Texas) was as good as annual wheat, and the seed yield about half. Another part of the study is getting under way, crossing the perennial wheats with regionally adapted varieties to try and produce perennial wheats that are better suited to specific conditions. And more detailed investigation of the perennial wheats will continue.

The really good news, as far as I am concerned, is that Dr Rush is now collaborating with Dr Stan Cox at The Land Institute. The scientists there have been such pioneers in perennial polyculture, I was kind of peeved that the first news from Texas A&M ignored them. It is very heartening to see mainstream scientists recognizing The Land Institute’s contributions and expertise. There’s also apparently been interest in the perennial wheats from what Texas A&M calls the Jon Innes Centre in Norwich, England. ((It is actually the John Innes Centre, with 1.3 million Google hits, versus the five for Jon Innes Centre.)) It is hard to tell what the JIC wants with perennial wheats; the release says something about habitat for wild birds. No doubt all part of the UK’s marvellous biodiversity conservation plan.

And in other wheat news, two rather heavy-duty papers about molecular biology. The first is a review of molecular markers in wheat breeding. ((Landjeva, Svetlana et al. (2007) Molecular markers: actual and potential contributions to wheat genome characterization and breeding. Euphytica, 156: 271-296. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10681-007-9371-0.)) If you’re into this sort of stuff, you don’t need this review. If you aren’t, it gives a reasonable history and summary and might help you to scythe your way through the thickets of jargon, acronyms and abbreviations. My main objection is the claim that “large-scale genome characterization by DNA-fingerprinting has revealed no declining trends in the molecular genetic diversity in wheat as a consequence of modern intensive breeding thus opposing the genetic ‘erosion’ hypothesis”, which takes a very narrow view of the genetic erosion hypothesis indeed.

And coming right along to bolster my belief, a paper showing that synthetic wheats are a valuable source of traits to improve varieties for baking and milling. ((Kunert, Antje et al. (2007) AB-QTL analysis in winter wheat: I. Synthetic hexaploid wheat (T. turgidum ssp. dicoccoides — T. tauschii) as a source of favourable alleles for milling and baking quality traits. Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 115: 683-695. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00122-007-0600-7.)) It is much easier to cross modern wheats with synthetic wheats (because they contain the same number of chromosome sets, six) than it is to cross modern wheats with either wild relatives or ancient wheats (which contain four or two sets). Kunert and colleagues crossed two wild species, revealing interesting genetic traits to improve qualities such as the amount of protein and the resistance to sprouting in storage, which can now be bred into modern wheats.

My feeling is that if all the genetic diversity breeders need were present in modern wheats, as Landjeva seems to think, then other scientists would not be spending considerable time and effort to create synthetic wheats from wild relatives in order to use them in breeding programmes.

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Arctic seed monkeys in publicity storm

Some people have all the fun. Reporter Louise Roug, of the Los Angeles Times, has clearly had a blast writing a major feature on the Global Crop Diversity Trust’s “doomsday vault” on Svalbard, above the Arctic Circle. She has it all: glaciers and frozen wilderness; airlocks, steel-reinforced doors and a video-monitoring system; more aggressive farming methods, environmental degradation and changing weather patterns; quotes from senior science coordinators with the Trust.

She also, this being modern journalism, has contrary opinions. To provide balance. So the director of one NGO is reported as saying that the Arctic seed vault “tends to divert attention, energy and money away from what we consider as much more urgent and sustainable efforts to save biodiversity on the farm”.

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Indian fruit genebank threatened by democracy

NB: Update here.

We interrupt this blog for a public service announcement. The Indian Express is reporting a proposal by the government of Jharkand State in northeast India to bulldoze the field genebanks of the Horticulture and Agro Forestry Research Programme. More than 20 years of work and thousands of fruit varieties are set to be destroyed in order to create bungalows for Members of Parliament.

What to do? This makes the UK’s attempts to dump its apple and pear collection look positively suave. We’ve alerted people who might have some influence. But seriously, what else can be done? Is anyone in Jharkand taking this up? How about the rest of India? We’re rank amateurs at activism. Advise us.

We wouldn’t normally repost an entire item, but this is important enough that we’re making an exception. So here goes.

Continue reading “Indian fruit genebank threatened by democracy”