- Compare and contrast the banana and the Big Mac. Dan Koeppel takes it to the masses.
- Lamenting the loss of “amber waves of grain”. Ingrate.
- Cameroon’s agriculture vulnerable to climate change. I’ll alert the media.
- Look what I got you for National Pollinator Week next week; a World Checklist of Bees. Neat-o.
- Celebrate food and farmers in Eden.
- “The core of the strategy is a short-term provision of improved seeds suited to the local environment and fertilizers like Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and urea accompanied by advice on how to use them.” Sounds familiar…
- Meanwhile, in non-Millennium Villages: “While his maize cobs were smaller than others, the seed was of a much higher quality; the fibre of his cotton was also much longer.”
- Japanese yam fields in peril. Yams as in Dioscorea or sweet potato or what? So annoying.
- Neolithic myths?
- California apricot grower explores Central Asia, comes up trumps. Jeremy comments: CandyCots? I think I want to be sick.
Prince buys apples
Regular readers will remember last year’s flap over the UK’s National Fruit Collection, which is looked after by the Brogdale Horticultural Trust and managed by the University of Reading at Brogdale, Kent. I won’t rehearse the details again, but suffice to say there was some doubt about the collection’s future. There’s now news from the Daily Telegraph that the collection has been “saved” by the Prince of Wales:
…three separate collections of the 1,000 most important breeds have been sold to the Prince of Wales, the Co-operative supermarket group and an anonymous Scottish businessman. ((Actually, not so anonymous.)) Each will plant their saplings in different parts of the country.
There’s not much more detail than that in the article, and of course we’ll work our contacts to try to find out more, and indeed to verify the accuracy of the newspaper accounts. But there are a couple of points about this statement that are a little worrying. At the very least, the whole thing raises a lot of interesting questions.
Let me start by saying that it’s certainly a good idea to safety duplicate (or triplicate in this case) germplasm collections in different places, especially field collections, which are particularly prone to accident and mishap. ((I’m afraid I dont know if the collection is maintained in tissue culture under slow growth or cryo conditions, but one would hope so.)) But how exactly were the thousand accessions chosen? There are 2,300 apple varieties in the collection. How does one measure the “importance” of each of these? One measure might be how much they’ve been used, either directly in plantations or in breeding. But wouldn’t such varieties be the ones in least need of conservation? It would be good to know what criteria were used to make the selection.
My second worry is over the fact that the germplasm has been “sold.” For how much, exactly? And how was the amount calculated? And what does that mean about access to that material by potential users, either in the UK or overseas? ((Added later: I should have pointed out that it is not clear from the newspaper account whether a copy of the collection will remain at Brogdale.)) Apple is on Annex 1 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Ex situ conserved Annex 1 material in the public domain and under the control of a Party to the Treaty, which the UK government is, is supposed to be made available to users under a “facilitated” access and benefit sharing regime. Does this privatization of part of the collection affect its status under the Treaty? If so, has the Treaty Secretariat been informed? It’s not as if the new owners won’t be trying making money out of it:
The Co-op intends to produce a “heritage apple juice” from some of the breeds by the end of this year. William Barnett, who heads up The Co-operative Farms’ 800-acre fruit-growing operation at Tillington in Herefordshire, where the apple trees are being planted, said: “Some of the apples date back to pre-Victorian times. They were originally dessert apples, but became less fashionable and failed as modern commercial varieties.”
What if someone else wants to try the same thing? Under what conditions will they have access to the material?
As I say, lots of questions. If anyone out there has the answers, we’d love to hear from you.
Nibbles: Potato, Cheese, Edible landscapes, Apples, Bees, Cacao, Vegetables
- The Guardian has a leader on the potato. Please let this year end soon. And thanks, Danny.
- Lucy Appleby RIP.
- Inner city farming in the UK.
- Gary Nabhan on where apples came from, and where they’re going. And more. Thanks again, Danny!
- Tracking bees’ response to climate change by satellite.
- Mars thinks cacao biodiversity is important. No news from Earth.
- The “keyhole gardens” of Lesotho.
Cities have no agrobiodiversity, it seems
UNEP and UN-Habitat announced today the publication of “case studies from around the world on cities, ecosystems and biodiversity.” I’ve had a quick look at a number of the summaries of studies on individual cities, including that on Rome, but unfortunately could find little evidence that agricultural biodiversity was even considered. That is a pity. Lots of agriculture goes on in cities, even cities in industrialized countries, in small homegardens and on terraces, in allotments and along roadside verges. ((Later: Coincidentally, this article on urban agriculture in Manila cropped up in my RSS feed today, but only after I’d written the above.)) The people involved are dedicated and knowledgeable. Often, they grow old, rare varieties and otherwise unusual species. Why not enlist them into the more general biodiversity conservation effort?
Nibbles: Biofuels, Prices, Biofuels again, Wolf, Mushrooms
- Wanna laff? Ag Leaders Challenge Ethanol Myths.
- Whisper it; the market works. Rice futures tumble, again.
- “Some biofuels might do more harm than good to the environment, study finds”. Alert the media! Oh, they already did.
- “Graphing Jane Austen” approach suggests wolf taught man to hunt. Little Red Riding Hood unavailable for comment.
- India’s Mushroom City.