Category: Neglected species

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Survey on African orphan crops

Danny posted the following recently on the “Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition” Yahoo Group. I couldn’t find it anywhere else online, so he may have got it by email, I’m not sure. He did ask for it to be more widely disseminated, so here goes. We have mentioned the African Orphan Crop Consortium here before, mainly, if memory serves, to question whether sequencing the genome of said crops was necessarily the best way to spend $40 million. But then we would, wouldn’t we.

“The African Orphan Crop (AOC) consortium had a successful launch at the Clinton Global Initiative in September and the Beijing Genomic Institute has already started work on sequencing winter-thorn acacia (Faidherbia albida). ((Faidherbia albida is still included in the survey to gather more information on the crop.)) After gathering wonderful feedback from our meeting this summer, we are now conducting a survey to guide the next steps of the project. Via the survey, you are invited to contribute your knowledge and opinions to inform the selection process for the first 20-25 crops that the consortium will genetically sequence. We deeply appreciate your willingness to share insights with this project and would encourage you to forward the survey to others in your network who might like to participate.

The results of this survey will be used by the consortium to inform a process for prioritizing which crops will be initially selected for genetic sequencing, assembly, and annotation by the consortium. As discussed this summer, once this information is developed, it will be placed into the public domain, and plant breeding programs will be established to support development of these crops including the training of 750 plant scientists in Africa. Ultimately, we would like to sequence all of the appropriate crops on this list, and we believe that the momentum generated by the first set of sequenced crops will attract additional interest and funding.

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A Green Revolution for trees

Prof Roger Leakey, sometime of ICRAF (among other places), where he pioneered tree domestication in support of rural livelihoods, and now Vice Chairman of the International Tree Foundation, has a fascinating new book in the offing.

In contrast to the doom and gloom often emanating from the tropics, ‘Living with the Trees of Life’ illustrates how many different aspects of agricultural science can be combined into a more robust approach to farming, which will be productive, as well as more environmentally and socially sustainable. This approach uses agroforestry as a delivery mechanism for multifunctional agriculture aimed at addressing the cycle of land degradation and social deprivation in the tropics. A key role in this is played by the ‘Trees of Life’, the large number of indigenous trees that produce marketable fruits, nuts, medicines and other products of day-to-day importance in the lives of local people throughout the tropics.

The book promises to be very practical.

A 3-step approach is described which can be used to close the Yield Gap (the difference between the yield potential of food crops and the yields actually achieved by farmers). This pays special attention to land husbandry and to the wise use of the natural resources which support agriculture and the livelihoods of poor farmers. By closing the Yield Gap agroforestry builds on the advances of the Green Revolution.

Builds on those advances while avoiding its pitfalls, and indeed rectifying its more regrettable consequences, one assumes.

Finally, all this comes together in a set of five ‘Convenient Truths’ which highlight that we have most of the knowledge and skills we need. This is illustrated by the Equator Prize winning project ‘Food for Progress’, in Cameroon, a project which has also been recognized by UK Government’s Office for Science as an African Success Story.

I had a little trouble identifying this project, but I believe I finally found it, and very interesting it sounds too.

Look out for the book in July, from CABI.

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