Category: Information

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Day 1 at the Amman drylands conference

The international conference on Food Security and Climate Change in Dry Areas got off to a stirring start with a long, passionate and scientifically very literate speech from the guest of honour, HRH Prince El Hassan Bin Talal. That was followed by keynotes from Drs Mahendra Shah and Mahmoud Solh, who have a huge amount of experience at the highest level of agricultural research and strategic planning in this region and beyond. Now, I did tweet some key points from their talks via my mobile, but as I write this over lunch they haven’t turned up in our stream yet. For all I know, they never will. Wifi access in the conference room is problematic, so you may have to be satisfied with these occasional summaries.

Anyway, here are some selected soundbites — the agrobiodiversity themed ones, mainly — from the morning session, including the Q&A:

  • We will need to trade an extra 500 million tons of cereals by 2080.
  • 175 million extra people (over the 1 billion hungry today) will go hungry due to climate change by 2080. Remember we were supposed to cut that figure by half.
  • In the dry areas, production increases will need to come almost exclusively from yield improvement. 90% of potentially new arable land is in only 7 countries!
  • Genebanks are key to the intensification that will be required if agriculture is to adapt.
  • Synthetic wheats, winter sowing of chickpea, IPM of Sunn pest are some of the success stories of crop diversity use for adaptation.
  • ICARDA has identified those small ruminant local breeds which are expected to be most adaptable to climate change. What about the poor others, though?
  • Both “protected agriculture” (greenhouses, hydroponics etc.) and conservation agriculture have a role to play in adaptation (and possibly mitigation too).
  • Why are we closing down agricultural extension services around the world?
  • Global models for the effects of climate change are fine, but downsizing to community level is often problematic, and THAT is where adaptation occurs. Or doesn’t.
  • What can we learn from how local people manage the oasis ecosystem?
  • Governance is a problem, sure, but let’s not hide behind the failings of politicians in assessing why science and technology innovations haven’t worked.
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    Bring on the meta-meta-analysis of organic agriculture’s benefits

    Whether or not organic food brings nutritional benefits over conventional food has been a matter of considerable inquiry and debate. The issue came to a head last month when a study commissioned by the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) concluded that there is no evidence of nutritional superiority.

    Now, however, a review published in the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development has said drawn wildly different conclusions.

    Oh, this will run and run, you mark my words…

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    Vote for your favourite nutrition innovation

    The finalists of the Improved Nutrition Solutions Through Innovation competition are up on Ashoka’s Changemakers site. One project promises that a “native rainforest food for school lunches improves child health while motivating reforestation.” And another wants to produce nutritional supplements from Moringa. It may not be enormously innovative, but I personally like Gardens for Health best, because it has the least of the silver bullet about it, and the most agrobiodiversity.

    Gardens for Health enables people living with HIV/AIDS to improve their nutrition, health, and treatment adherence through sustainable agriculture. GHI provides access to land and patient capital for community gardens, seeds and tree seedlings for family home gardens, technical assistance in sustainable agriculture and nutrition, and market linkages

    Go vote. You have until 8 February.

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    Does germplasm documentation need a social networking makeover?

    The story so far:

    John Cho is a plant pathologist and taro breeder at the University of Hawaii. A few days ago he posted a youtube video on his Facebook wall. It shows some very successful trial results from the Dominican Republic. The experiment in question is the evaluation for taro leaf blight resistance of some hybrids from Dr Cho’s breeding programme. Unfortunately, the interview with pathologists Drs Graciela Godoy and Miguel Martínez of the Instituto Dominicano de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales (IDIAF) is in Spanish, and John doesn’t speak that language. So he asked his Facebook friends to help, and one of them, an agronomist from Puerto Rico, sent him a translation.

    But it doesn’t stop there. A discussion develops. Here it is, reproduced verbatim, time stamps and all, with the kind permission of the participants:

    John Cho – Muchas garcias, looks like 3 of my taro hybrids are very tolerant to taro leaf blight in the Dominican Republic. That is great! Let’s hope that IDIAF will start breeding for tolerant materials with Bun Long attributes.
    January 22 at 4:44am

    John Cho – Carlos, I checked to see what hybrids corresponded to the tolerant ones mentioned by Miguel and they are the following: H2 is 2002-21f, H4 is 2000-109, H6 is MS3. I think that I also sent those 3 to you for trials as well.
    January 22 at 4:54am

    Carlos Emilio Ortiz-Malavé – 21f did well here, MS3 grew too slow to be considered in the afirmative. 109 was not among the ones we received in the the first lot. Ill b checking If I have it among the ones you sent May 2008. I ran out of $$ for evaluations, but Im asking for permition to continue. I let you know on the results of these actions.

    John Cho – Carlos, the genetic background are the following: H2 or 2002-21f = India x [Pwetepwet x Maui Lehua]; H4 or 2000-109 = [Red Moi x PH15-11] x Maui Lehua; H6 or MS3 = Maui Lehua x Sushi. Background for the parents are the following: India = a variety collected by Vincent Lebot in 1991 from the marketplace in India; Pwetepwet = a Micronesian line tolerant to TLB; Maui Lehua = a hybrid variety selected from a cross between 2 Hawaiian varieties (thought to be a cross between Piialii and Lehua Maoli); Red Moi = a Hawaiian variety; PH15 = a TLB tolerant variety from Papua New Guinea; Sushi = a TLB tolerant variety from Micronesia.
    Yesterday at 3:36am

    Carlos Emilio Ortiz-Malavé – Thank you John for the information, part of which you provide me for the Res. Note under evaluation. I should stress that among the Hawaiian Hybrids we tested 19F was by far the best adapted -really the best regarding over all horticultural performance- although 21F did well. Did you sent 19F to de Dom. Rep.? This will be my choice as parent for crossing to Lila-BunLong
    18 minutes ago

    Carlos Emilio Ortiz-Malavé – John; Im wondering if 109 at the Dominican Republic is the same genotype as 19 in Puerto Rico (that is, with an “0” missing between 1 and 9. Thats because this 109-19 wast among the best performers. And because looks to me that we should have the same genotypes. Illl check the original documentation and be back with you.
    about a minute ago

    And so on. Now, my question is this. What is likely to lead to more use of a germplasm collection: this kind of open-ended discussion, or tables of accession x descriptor results?

    Just asking.