- Opium gene decoded. Is that good?
- ILRI shares a bunch of presentations on value chains. Can’t be bad.
- Missouri Botanical Garden opens Center for Biodiversity Informatics. Will any good come of it?
- Agri scientists promote 2010 as biodiversity year. But that should have read Bioversity International. Bad.
- Wild edibles could hold key to protecting food supply? They mean wild relatives, of course. Very bad.
- More on our Twitter feed. You following us, right? Good!
- Beware the Ides of March! Laurel wreath bad for some.
Fair deal for rooibos
Before fair trade, small-scale farmers like Hendrik lived close to the breadline as prices for rooibos were squeezed by the market. But fair trade has tripled the farmers’ income. Plus, with the extra money they now get for the tea, Hendrik and his friends can invest in their future, buying their own farming equipment and their own tea court where the raw rooibos leaves are chopped and dried.
“Hendrik” is Hendrik Hesselman, from the Cedarberg region of South Africa. He’s one of 5,000 farmers from Cedarberg who produce the world’s supply of rooibos (or redbush) tea.
Mr Hesselman is a founding member of the 50-plus strong Heiveld Cooperative, which was established in 2003 — with backing from UKaid from the Department for International Development — “to get their tea recognised as Fairtrade, and to get a fair price for it.”
There are also photos, and a video on the community’s attempts to adapt to climate change. One of the things they’re doing is evaluating different “wild types” of rooibos for tolerance of drought conditions. I can’t find any reference to ex situ conservation activities, alas.
Hot potato in Europe
From André Heitz.
Approval of genetically modified varieties in Europe is governed by a strange rule: a qualified majority of member States in Council is required for either approving or rejecting a GMV, and if a qualified majority does not obtain, the decision is entrusted to the European Commission. For the last twelve years — a period of time in which GMVs rose from some 30 to some 134 million hectares worldwide — member States have always managed to create the stalemate that threw the hot potato onto a shy Commission preoccupied by its standing rather than effectiveness.
Things may have changed on 2 March 2010, when the Commission — ending a process that started in January 2003 — approved BASF’s Amflora potato for cultivation for industrial use (it is a starch potato composed almost exclusively of amylopectin) and authorised the use of its by-products as feed. At the same time, it authorised the placing on the market of three GM maize products (MON863xMON810, MON863xNK603, MON863xMON810xNK603) for food and feed uses, but not for cultivation.
Not unexpectedly, these decisions provoked the ire of “environmental groups” and some member States. In the Amflora case, the controversy centres on the presence of an antibiotic resistance marker gene.
Whether those decisions are a positive signal for GMVs in Europe is quite uncertain, however.
Firstly, the cultivation authorisation for Amflora is subject to restrictions to prevent the mixing of the GM potato with conventional or organic potatoes. Sounds reasonable, but the measures are nothing but good crop husbandry and industrial practices, moreover in the context of a crop that will be grown exclusively under contract with a limited number of processors. The upshot is that this potato is still treated like a delinquent requiring close scrutiny. Ironically, if we exclude the ARM nptII gene (now present elsewhere on millions of hectares) and the changed proportion of amylopectin and amylose, Amflora is no different from conventional starch potatoes.
Secondly, it is understood that member States will be free to refuse the cultivation of Amflora (at present, member States can only derogate to the principle of a single market under strict conditions). The Commission will also produce a “proposal by the summer setting out how a Community authorisation system, based on science, can be combined with freedom for Member States to decide whether or not they wish to cultivate GM crops on their territory”.
Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner, John Dalli stated: “Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies. After an extensive and thorough review of the five pending GM files, it became clear to me that there were no new scientific issues that merited further assessment. All scientific issues, particularly those concerning safety, had been fully addressed. Any delay would have simply been unjustified. By taking these decisions, the European Commission fulfils its role in a responsible manner.” There is every reason to expect that national governments — and why not also regional and local authorities — will not decide on the same basis when confronted with irrational arguments and electoral pressure.
For more, both with further links:
Protecting British food
If you were intrigued by our recent nibble about Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb receiving Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status by the European Commission, you’ll no doubt be wondering what other examples of British fare share that honour. Well, Paul Mundy just posted a link to a list over at the ELDev Yahoo group. I have only one comment: 10 types of beer and cider seems too few…
Taiwanese agrobiodiversity juxtapositions
Seen in one small convenience store by the roadside in Shanhua: rice and peanut milk, soy and mung bean drink, and almond and fish snack. All mainstream products in fancy packaging. Maybe it’s just that these are unfamiliar combinations, but it seems to me that we’re not nearly as good in the West at mixing and matching our agricultural biodiversity. By the way, there was asparagus juice too. I tried them all, and they were all pretty good.