- Australians justify their investment in IRRI. Now that’s what I call impact!
- Peruvian cuisine takes over the world. But, as Eve points out elsewhere, “We have a thousand kinds of potatoes in Peru, thousands” is not hyperbole.
- Jess scoops the world with a nutrition strategy for the masses.
- Indians need sorghum and millets to keep healthy.
- Ethnobiology: The Book.
- Talking about street food. Hold the mayo.
- Not all pigs are cloven-hoofed. A tetrapod zoologist explains syndactyly.
- Polyculture; is it all Pollyanna? Science will answer.
- A flavour map of British cheeses. You know you need it.
- Foraging for pawpaws. Not those pawpaws.
- Bird areas apps. CWRs next?
Money for shiny new rope?
You might think that when Africa’s “most important, but neglected native crops” get $40 million of support we would be all over the story like a rash. So why weren’t we? 1 Mostly it is because it is really hard to find anything positive to say, and we don’t want to sound like nay-sayers.
The gist of the “commitment” Improving Africa’s Neglected Food Crops, which the Clinton Global Initiative ascribes to NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, 2 is that private companies and public bodies have teamed up to build, among other things, a biotechnology centre in Ghana. According to UC Davis, the centre:
[W]ill sequence the genome — an organism’s entire collection of genes — for each species and make that information freely available to scientists around the world. That information will then be applied, using the most advanced breeding techniques and technologies, to develop new varieties of crops that are more nutritious, produce higher yields and are more tolerant of environmental stresses, such as drought.
The proposed centre may even be the same one referred to in a SciDev.net piece, although that one “will focus research on cassava, cocoyam, sweet potato and yam”.
Either way, I have to ask whether complete genome sequences are what poor African farmers really need right now. I realize that genomes are groovy, and very scientific, and will undoubtedly deliver great improvements in five years. Right now, though, here’s a small idea of what actual smallholder farmers want. Yesterday morning — I promise — Nduse Mailu left this comment to a post from March 2007:
i stumbled on this blog abd it seems quite awesome to a farmer like me.i currently have about 500 trees and i am in the process of increasing to 4000 and i am seeking guidance on whether to continue growing kienyenji style that is planting seeds from my own fruits or profesionaly that is buying guide me please and to Victor how are your trees doing what are ur challenges if any?
As it happens, the announcement of the new project singles out a tree for special mention.
[T]he consortium has already begun to sequence the (sic) Faidherbia albida, a type of acacia tree that can be used for improving soil nitrogen content and preventing erosion. The tree also has edible seeds and, unlike most trees, sheds its leaves during the rainy season so that it can be grown among field crops without shading them.
Right now, then, what do you suppose Mr Mailu needs? The sequence of Faidherbia albida (aka African winterthorn) with a promise of great improvements to come? Or a reliable supply of seedlings of good enough provenance and the knowledge to get the most out of them? 3
I have no desire to stop Ghana and the rest of Africa developing the skills to sequence whatever they want, although I do question the cost effectiveness of doing the sequencing that way. But why is it even possible to talk of raising $40 million for that when farmers like Mr Mailu are posting comments here looking for very simple advice?
Here’s one possible reason.
“In order to really solve problems, and to get people to join, you have to break them down to their most transparent and simple pieces.”
So says Rajiv Shah, “the young gun fixing USAID” in an interview he gave Fortune magazine. And that idea — simplify, simplify, simplify — Shah got from his mentor Bill Gates, who said:
“The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.”
Uh-huh.
Now, you can take two approaches to the kind of complexity that faces Mr Mailu and millions like him. You could say that providing comprehensive extension services to millions of poor farmers is impossibly complex because the farmers all live in different places and have different farming systems and need different advice. How much simpler to sequence orphan crops.
Or you could say that sequencing orphan crops is unutterably complex, because each crop is likely to be different and to require different tweaks to its genome to enhance its performance in different places, and in the end you’re going to need massive investments in extension services to get the improved crops out to the farmers and ensure that they know how to make good use of them. How much simpler to offer farmers good practical advice now.
How complex is that?
Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair off and running
The Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair will be an exciting and “out-of-the-box” event, offering participants creative and innovative learning and sharing opportunities, and equipping them with tools to better influence future rural development activities.
Here’s the homepage, with all the various ways of following developments. Though the live video feed is elsewhere. I just got this quote from Rob Burnet, who was talking about sharing the joys of chicken-rearing:
Information should be in a format such that when you hold your hand out, it’s snatched!
Snatch away.
LATER: IFAD lists the highlights. Interestingly, Sam Dryden‘s presentation yesterday of the Gates Foundation agricultural strategy doesn’t make the cut. Video to come, apparently. But here’s a summary, on page 2.
Brainfood: Breeding resistance, Pastures, Wheats, Dates, Conservation, Habitats, Old olives, Spinach selection, Maize breeding
- Cytological and Molecular Characterization of Homoeologous Group-1 Chromosomes in Hybrid Derivatives of a Durum Disomic Alien Addition Line. Getting tolerance to Fusarium head blight into durum wheat ain’t easy.
- Sustainable, low-input, warm-season, grass–legume grassland mixtures: mission (nearly) impossible? Apparently really difficult to find native North America legume forage species tolerant of both freezing and high temperatures, but people are looking. Gotta wonder if it’s a problem elsewhere too. Ethiopian highlands?
- Diversity of different farmer and modern wheat varieties cultivated in contrasting organic farming conditions in western Europe and implications for European seed and variety legislation. Strong selection for uniformity (for regulation) is not reflected in uniformity assessed on farm. And farmer varieties were good outside their region of origin.
- Glycaemic index of three Indian rice varieties. All three the same, high, GI. So, “There is an urgent need to study the GI of other commonly consumed rice varieties and to develop rice of a lower GI value”. Er, right.
- Glycemic indices of five varieties of dates in healthy and diabetic subjects. All five the same, low, GI and no difference in diabetics.
- Agricultural expansion and the fate of global conservation priorities. Conservation needs to think about agriculture.
- Which habitats of European importance depend on agricultural practices? 63 of them, mainly through grazing and mowing.
- Centennial olive trees as a reservoir of genetic diversity. Only about 10% of old trees matched current cultivars.
- Phenotypic Changes in Different Spinach Varieties Grown and Selected under Organic Conditions. There were phenotypic changes after just three seasons of selection, in one case resulting in a “new” variety.
- Open-Pollinated vs. Hybrid Maize Cultivars. Hybrids are not the only way to improve maize productivity, apparently.
- Plant breeding for harmony between agriculture and the environment. “Plant breeding can be a powerful tool to bring “harmony” between agriculture and the environment, but partnerships between plant breeders, ecologists, urban planners, and policy makers are needed to make this a reality.” I was just going to ask, why can’t we all just get along.
Don’t forget the open Mendeley group for the papers we link to here. Even if you don’t use Mendeley, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the group and get stuff that way.
Nibbles: Elm disease, Kew genebank, Maize domestication, Wildlife vs livestock, Medieval figs, Alternative food security, Spineless lulo, Mangos for Haiti, Aubergine breeding, Urban ag in Japan, West African research
- “Beginning in the late 1990s, Kock travelled throughout Ontario collecting twigs of seemingly healthy mature elms, in what amounted to an elm dating service.”
- “…a curated inventory of miscellaneous interestingness” lands on the Millennium Seed Bank. Hilarity ensues.
- What do hopscotch, architecture and maize have in common?
- Zebras good for cattle.
- The fig deconstructed.
- “Improve yields through crop diversity…” ??? Who are these people?
- Crops for the Future bemoans the loss of “a spineless variety of Solanum quitoense.” Someone, somewhere must still have it, surely.
- Mangos: Haiti’s new best friend?
- Home-bred eggplants. Or aubergines.
- “Urban agriculture in Japan, cultivating sustainability and well being.” Again? Still?
- West Africa to get bunch of specialist biotechnology centres for crop improvement. No word on where the existing national genebanks fit in. Nor, ahem, what role IITA, ICRISAT and the other CGIAR Centres are going to play in all this.