I didn’t go looking for this. These three stories came to me independently, from different sources, from different parts of the world, but all within a day or two of each other. And all describing agriculture in crisis.
Starch and human diversity
Human diversity and agricultural biodiversity interact. The variation that exists between and within crops and livestock products in nutritional content is to some extent matched by — and indeed there is evidence that in some cases it has driven — genetic variation between and within the human populations that make use of them. We’ve blogged about this with regard to lactose intolerance and predisposition to iron deficiency. Now comes a study ((Perry, George H. et al. (2007) Diet and the evolution of human amylase gene copy number variation. Nature Genetics. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng2123.)) linking variation among human populations in the number of copies of the amylase gene with the amount of starch in their diet ((I learned about it via a post in Carl Zimmer’s blog The Loom, in which he also talks about a couple of other cases of multiple copies of a gene building up in a genome.))
Bigger not necessarily better in agrobiodiversity
Jeremy says we sound like a broken record on the lack of agricultural thinking in biodiversity circles at times, and he’s right of course. More charitably, it could be thought of as judicious use of a leitmotif. In which case another one would certainly be the unfortunate dearth of information on nutritional composition at the variety or accession level, certainly as compared to morphological and agronomic information. The reason for that is that genetic resources scientists and breeders have been more interested in things like yield and disease resistance. That’s had consequences.
Continue reading “Bigger not necessarily better in agrobiodiversity”
Grasshopper stew
Apparently, harvesting grasshoppers mechanically to eat and sell them is not only good for your nutrition and income, it can also save on pesticide use. Another benefit of micro-livestock. Or is it mini? Whichever, pests are agrobiodiversity too!
Farmer field schools in Burkina Faso
Farmer field schools are growing in popularity, as a way for farmers and technocrats alike to learn what works and why in real life. From The Rodale Institute, one of the foremost organic organizations in the United States, comes a lengthy feature article about how things operate in Burkina Faso. Relentlessly upbeat, it gives the low-down on the individual farmers who make farmer field schools such a success. An excellent read.