Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
So you could say that the National Genebank of China which I talked about in the previous post is a sort of modern equivalent of this building, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests in Bejing‘s Temple of Heaven complex. No word on whether there are landrace seeds embedded within it somewhere, as in that statue in Ulaanbaatar.
Back at the day job, we are often asked by journalists and others how many different types, or varieties, of this or that crop there are in a country, or indeed the world. And, with help from our friendly crop experts, we have tried to provide answers. But it is as well to remind ourselves sometimes how slippery the question is. Because, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it really does depend on what your definitions of “different” and “variety” are. For example, take rice in a particular part of Thailand, as the authors of a recent paper in GRACE did. ((Oupkaew, P., Pusadee, T., Sirabanchongkran, A., Rerkasem, K., Jamjod, S., & Rerkasem, B. (2010). Complexity and adaptability of a traditional agricultural system: case study of a gall midge resistant rice landrace from northern Thailand Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution DOI: 10.1007/s10722-010-9579-z))
They looked at 20 accessions of a single landrace, defined as a “geographically and ecologically distinctive population, identifiable by unique morphologies and well-established local name.” That is, these 20 samples, though collected from different farmers and even villages, all basically looked the same, and were recognized as belonging to the same type by farmers, who gave them all the same name — Muey Nawng.
But the authors found significant, non-random, patterned variation within the material, not only in microsatellite markers, which wouldn’t perhaps be so bad, but also in endosperm starch type, days to heading and, interestingly, gall midge resistance. So how many varieties were there among the 20 samples of Muey Nawng? Answers on a postcard, please.
The Gandantegchinlen (meaning Great Place of Complete Joy) Monastery in Ulaan Baatar features a 25 metre tall statue called Migjid Janraisig, “the Lord who looks in every direction.” The original was built in the early 20th century in an effort to restore the sight of Bogd Javzandamba, the eighth Jebtsundamba, spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia. The statue was dismantled and taken away by the Soviets in 1938, but it was rebuilt in 1996 with donations from the Mongolian people. The statue is gilded solid copper. Well, almost solid. Precious cultural materials are encased within it. Including seeds of dozens of the country’s wheat landraces, according to my friends at the national genebank in Darkhan.
And since we’re talking about blogs, here’s a new one that could be of great interest. Alder, a self-described apprentice anthropologist, is meditating on her travels in pursuit of agrobiodiversity, and her “existential status.” Into the RSS reader it goes.