- Identification of trait-specific germplasm and developing a mini core collection for efficient use of foxtail millet genetic resources in crop improvement. All the goodness of Setaria italica diversity in just 35 accessions.
- Farmers’ adoption of maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids and the persistence of landraces in Southwest China: implications for policy and breeding. There are pros and cons to both hybrids and landraces, and participatory plant breeding could bring together the pros and get rid of the cons.
- Carotenoid concentrations of native Andean potatoes as affected by cooking. Some carotenoids were decreased by boiling, others not so much.
- Domestication evolution, genetics and genomics in wheat. A big summary of what we know so far and what we might learn by sequencing some wild wheat relatives.
- Research Principles for Developing Country Food Value Chains. Multidimensional demands by consumers demand multidimensional research by scientists. I think.
- Range shift promotes the formation of stable range edges. Species can move for reasons other than climate change.
- Genetic diversity of rhizobia associated with indigenous legumes in different regions of Flanders (Belgium). A new genus? In Flanders?
- Assessment of yeast diversity in soils under different management regimes. Type of management and vegetation has an effect. Yeah, well, you had to be there.
- Efficiency of PowerCore in core set development using amplified fragment length polymorphic markers in mungbean. Software for making core collections seems to work.
- Three new teosintes (Zea spp., Poaceae) from México. New entities, apparently. Species? Subspecies? More study needed, natch.
- Recent long-distance transgene flow into wild populations conforms to historical patterns of gene flow in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) at its centre of origin. Four out of eight populations have transgenes.
- Effectiveness of strict vs. multiple use protected areas in reducing tropical forest fires: A global analysis using matching methods. Indigenous areas and multiple use are best.
- The sudden emergence of pathogenicity in insect–fungus symbioses threatens naive forest ecosystems. It can happen anywhere, any time.
Nibbles: Blé tendre, Colloquium, Kenyan veg, Sharing vs Sparing, Rice, Tomatillos, Walnuts
- Attention, francophones! Quels indicateurs pour suivre la diversité génétique des plantes cultivées? Le cas du blé tendre cultivé en France depuis un siècle.
- Et un colloque on how genetic resources respond to new environmental, economic and societal issues.
- Award for Kenyan vegetable enthusiast Prof. Mary Abukutsa.
- An in-depth look at land-sharing versus land sparing.
- “The age of the ‘mega-varieties’ [of rice] may be over.” Say it isn’t so, Joe!
- What to do with tomatillos, apart from salsa, that is.
- What to do with ancient walnuts, or rather, walnut tree forests. Save them, obviously.
Himalayan landraces and climate change
I think it may be worth unpacking yesterday’s Himalayan Nibble a little bit. It all started with an IPS story about Nepali women abandoning hybrids and other imported varieties for local landraces in the face of drier and hotter conditions. That’s becoming a metanarrative of sorts, but the interesting thing about this particular example of adaptation is that it came out of a WWF project.
When WWF-Nepal started consultations with villagers on how to protect water resources and crops, the women pointed out that the indigenous seeds they had used in the past were better suited to the changing weather conditions.
One doesn’t as a rule credit WWF with much of an interest in agriculture, or at least I don’t — or didn’t. I’ve now learned better. The piece also highlights the role of community seedbanks (CSB).
Operating from a room in a one-storey building, the seed bank today stocks 68 varieties of seeds, including grains like rice, maize and millets, and vegetables like tomato, green chilli, cauliflower and cabbage. The women’s cooperative runs from the adjacent room.
Which is quite a coincidence because yesterday also saw the paper “Banking for the future: savings, security and seeds: a short study of community seed banks in Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Nepal, Thailand, Zambia and Zimbabwe” summarized over at Eldis. One of the recommendations of the study is that:
agricultural research institutions should extend their expertise and services for free to assist and support communities and NGOs in setting up and maintaining CSBs
Fair enough, but what about extension? I ask because also on Eldis, on the same day, we find the study “Determinants of adoption and extent of agricultural intensification in the central mid-hills of Nepal,” which concludes that:
sustainable agricultural intensification can be achieved by improving extension programmes, credit provision, infrastructural services and the promotion of irrigation facilities
Anyway, be that as it may, I think we can all agree that there’s something interesting going on in Nepal in terms of the use of landraces to adapt to climate change. It may not be the answer, but it certainly seems to be an answer. So why, pray tell, are they not listening in Bhutan? There’s definitely not much talk of community seedbanks and the role of landraces in a SciDev piece, again out on the same day mind, on the problems being faced by that country’s farmers due to climate change. Ah, but:
An upcoming regional meeting on climate change in the Himalayas, to be held in Bhutan in November 2011, will see experts discussing water, energy and biodiversity and devising strategies to build climate change resilience for food security in the region.
I hope those Nepali women with their community seedbank will be invited.
Nibbles: Rice biofortification, Wild walnuts, Himalayan agriculture, Eating invasives, Gissen on wine, Medicinal fungus, Soil initiative, Ag development in S Sudan, AVRDC and WorldFish, Value chains
- Boffins to rice: Pump it Up!
- Saving the nuts of Central Asia.
- Nepali women abandon hybrids for landraces and community seedbanks. Weird thing is that it’s a WWF project. But where are the extensionists? If only they had listened in Bhutan. Ok that packed a lot of links in there.
- Never saw an invasive I didn’t like.
- Architectural theorist tackles wine. Not many people hurt.
- Turns out 57 insect species can play host to that famous medicinal fungus that led to war between Tibetan communities a couple of years back. Which helps how?
- An envelope is opened at FAO.
- Seeds come to South Sudan. One hopes they are of the right kinds. And that somebody is collecting what was there before. Maybe someone should call WWF.
- You want vegetables with your fish?
- Crops for the Future says not all middlemen bad.
Protected areas in China: more and better needed
A big article in BioScience looks at the state of nature reserves in China, and finds them lacking. According to the press release:
Protected area managers in many cases currently lack basic data about which plant species are present on their reserves and even the exact area and extent of the reserves. Consequently, the effects of China’s rapid economic development, the related spread of invasive species, and the growth of tourism could drive to extinction species that could be sources of future crops and medicine.
Some things worth mentioning, from the article itself. 1 First, nice to see crop wild relatives getting a look in, although there is no mention of the agricultural biodiversity already being used by farmers either in the protected areas or outside them. Secondly, although the authors suggest preserving “very rare and threatened species” in some of China’s more than 140 botanic gardens, they don’t talk about conservation in genebanks, and they don’t talk about incentives for in-situ or on-farm conservation. In fact, the only incentives mentioned are those government should offer to persuade people to move out of the protected areas and into the cities.
So, once again, people are the problem. “Conflicts between the interests of rural communities and nature conservation need to be resolved,” and the way to do that is to move the people out of the way of conservation.
China has an opportunity to lead the world in developing a coherent conservation policy for plants important to agriculture, one that recognises the importance of diversity (as much Chinese agriculture has done), that integrates the various different forms of conservations, and that enlists the people who actually interact with plant diversity, manage it, even if only by default, and thus help to determine its future.