- Increases in crop pests caused by Wasmannia auropunctata in Solomon Islands subsistence gardens. Law of Unintended Consequences takes its toll. Or does it? Discussion at Pestnet suggests the Little Fire Ant may not have been introduced as a biological control agent as suggested by the paper.
- A Social-Ecological Analysis of Diversified Farming Systems: Benefits, Costs, Obstacles, and Enabling Policy Frameworks. Special issue of Ecology and Society on DFS. That would be Diversified Farming Systems. Bottom line is that you need to understand both their ecology and their politics to make sense of them, and make them work for you.
- Morphological diversity in breadfruit (Artocarpus, Moraceae): insights into domestication, conservation, and cultivar identification. 221 accessions provide exactly those insights.
- The original features of rice (Oryza sativa L.) genetic diversity and the importance of within-variety diversity in the highlands of Madagascar build a strong case for in situ conservation. Farms are more diverse than villages, which are more diverse than regions, so it may not take that much to conserve a lot of diversity in situ.
- More rapid and severe disease outbreaks for aquaculture at the tropics: implications for food security. Driven by environmental factors, and will get worse with climate change. Strangely, breeding for resistance, and genetic diversity in general, not mentioned.
- Cultivation of Domesticated Rice Alters Arthropod Biodiversity and Community Composition. Wild rice fields have different, less diverse arthropod communities.
- Quantifying habitat-specific contributions to insect diversity in agricultural mosaic landscapes. Some of the different bits of diverse landscapes in Switzerland have unique insects, which is apparently not the case in other places.
- Synergistic effects of non-Apis bees and honey bees for pollination services. And you do need lots of different insects, at least for pollination.
- Earth observation: overlooked potential to support species reintroduction programmes. Translocation and introductions are fraught, but if you still want to do them…
- An improved model to predict the effects of changing biodiversity levels on ecosystem function. Basically, the contribution of species 1 with relative abundance A and species 2 with relative abundance B to ecosystem function is AxB to the power of θ. Can it be extended to ecosystem services, I wonder?
- Pinot blanc and Pinot gris arose as independent somatic mutations of Pinot noir. So that’s where they came from. Insights into “[o]enological aptitude”.
- Divergent pattern of nuclear genetic diversity across the range of the Afromontane Prunus africana mirrors variable climate of African highlands. Sheds light on the history of Afromontane regions.
Nibbles: Genome assembly, Congo livelihoods, Tilman, Peak farmland, Lima bean project, Cotton award, Translocation, Sudanese seed, Pachyrhizus, Conference, Agro-ecology, SEAVEG, Indigenous foodways,
- The latest genomic whiz-bangery.
- CIFOR’s Congo slideshow makes The Guardian. About as far from genomic whiz-bangery as you can get.
- Speaking of which… Very long talk by David Tilman. Almost certainly worth watching in its entirety. Eventually. It all depends on trade-offs. See what I did there?
- Agriculture stops expanding. Is it all that genomic whiz-bangery?
- U. of Delaware gets big Lima bean grant. Yes, Delaware. They got whiz-bangery in Delaware too.
- Meanwhile, Texan cotton breeder gets award. For a certain amount of whiz-bangery.
- Translocation and restoration: cool, but a last resort, whiz-bangery says.
- Support for the seed sector in S. Sudan. Any landraces? No whiz-bangery in sight.
- And likewise for the yam bean in Africa.
- Wonder whether that’ll be on the agenda at the First Food Security Futures Conference in April. Probably not.
- Nor, probably, will anyone be thinking too hard about agro-ecology; but you could be, with this handy-dandy introduction to holistic management.
- SEAVEG; no, not nori etc, but veg in SE Asia.
- Different animals need different kinds of fodder, ILRI shows how.
- Wishing success to the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative launched at the University of Arkansas today.
Nibbles: CGIAR vision, GFAR vision, UNEP vision, Tree seeds, Aerial vision, Visions of potatoes, Soybeans, DNA sequencing, Rewilding
- The latest bit of CGIAR navel-gazing is about whether research should be for or in development.
- The Futures of Agriculture: Brief No. 42. No, really, 42. Love that plural, though
- And of course UNEP needs to have its say too.
- Oh, wow, someone actually doing something.
- How about a visionary use for tree seeds? Burn ’em!
- Then there are visions of potato diversity.
- And a vision of a world covered in soybeans.
- And DNA sequences as far as the eye can see. So, can we get all those wild relatives done now, just for the heck of it?
- Can you take one more vision? Here’s one of rewilded Europe.
Nibbles: Mashua info, Veggies programme, Rice research, Genomes!, Indian malnutrition, Forest map, British agrobiodiversity hero, GMO “debate”, Lactose tolerance, Beer
- New Year Resolution No. 1: Take the mashua survey.
- New Year Resolution No. 2: Give the Food Programme a break, it can be not bad. As in the case of the recent episode featuring Irish Seed Savers and the only uniquely British veg.
- New Year Resolution No. 3: Learn to appreciate hour-plus talks by CG Centre DGs. And other publicity stunts…
- New Year Resolution No. 4: Give a damn about the next genome. Well, actually…
- New Year Resolution No. 5: Try to understand what people think may be going on with malnutrition in India. If anything.
- New Year Resolution No. 6: Marvel at new maps without fretting about how difficult to use they may be.
- New Year Resolution No. 7: Do not snigger at the British honours system.
- New Year Resolution No. 8: Disengage from the whole are-GMOs-good-or-bad? thing. It’s the wrong question, and nobody is listening anyhow.
- New Year Resolution No. 9: Ignore the next lactose tolerance evolution story. They’re all the same.
- New Year Resolution No. 10: Stop obsessing about beer. But not yet. No, not yet.
- Happy 2013!
Implementation of AnGR plan of action initiated
FAO has just announced that 13 projects, involving 30 countries, have been selected for funding as contributions to the implementation of 2007’s Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources. That’s thanks to the Governments of Germany, Norway and Switzerland, who put more than US$1 million in voluntary contributions into the appropriate FAO Trust Account, as per the Funding Strategy of the GPA. What are these projects? Well, it’s not all that easy to say. These are the directions FAO gives us:
Details of the projects are available here (scroll down to the map).
The map in question is nice enough, and clicking on the country gives you lots of information on each project, but what I really wanted was just a list, giving titles and countries. And I couldn’t find that anywhere, though maybe I just didn’t look hard enough. With just that map, interactive and all, you get a good overall idea of geographic coverage, but it’s very difficult to figure out the range of livestock species involved in the projects, or how many are single-country as opposed to multi-country initiatives, for example. A pity.
Ah, but fear not, we’ve got you covered. Here’s the list you know you wanted but FAO wouldn’t let you have, going roughly from east to west, painstakingly extracted from that ever-so-pretty map.
- Regional Project: Cook Islands, Fiji and Niue
Title: South West Pacific Animal Genetic Resources Project — Conservation of indigenous pig and chicken breeds in Fiji, Niue and Cook Islands - Country: India
Title: Documenting and supporting community-based conservation of four local breeds - Regional Project: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Title: BushaLive (cattle) - Regional Project: Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda
Title: Promotion of indigenous chicken for improved livelihood and income generation - Country: Mozambique
Title: Conservation of native cattle breeds of Mozambique, for their present and future use - Country: Nigeria
Title: Conserving the Muturu Breed of Cattle in South Rain Forest Zone of Nigeria - Country: Togo
Title: Phenotypic and molecular characterization of local chicken in Togo - Regional Project: Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Senegal
Title: Assessment of the impact of transhumance on the sustainable management of animal genetic resources - Regional Project: Algeria, Morocco
Title: Preservation of Beni Guil sheep breed by semen exchanges between countries - Regional Project: Argentina, Brasil, Costa Rica
Title: Enhancement of Farmers Communities through Goats Utilization and Genetic Improvement - Regional Project: Bolivia, Peru
Title: Capacity strengthening for the implementing breeding strategies for llamas in Bolivia and Peru - Country: Uruguay
Title: Caracterizacion productiva y conservacion en ovinos criollos de Uruguay - Country: Chile
Title: Estrategias de conservacion in situ para bovinos y caprinos
Funny this coming hot on the heels of the launch of FAO’s monumental new data portal.