Category: Policy

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Diverse points of view on feeding Africa

We like to embrace different points of view here ourselves, though we also like to think there’s a certain consistency to most of what we say and do. Maybe that’s why I find it strange that a single blog, on a single day ((Admittedly 1 April.)) can feature two such divergent posts. One — Homegrown Solutions to Alleviating Hunger and Poverty — is a thorough look at the role of indigenous fruit and vegetable crops in delivering a healthy and nutritious diet. The other — Breeding for Climate Change — links, almost without comment, to a report on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s project to deliver just two (one conventionally bred, one genetically engineered) drought-resistant maize varieties to sub Saharan Africa.

I have no doubt that genetic engineering, precision farming and other high-tech tools of modern intensive farming can supply all the calories the world will need even when it hosts 9 billion people. I do doubt that the 9 billion will actually get those calories. And I know that calories alone are not enough. People need nourishment, not merely calories.

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Confused in Cali

The Ninth Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-sharing of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD ABS 9) has just drawn to a close in Cali, Colombia. It’s important stuff. So what was the result? Well, it’s a little hard to say. This is from the official press release:

Participants to a United Nations meeting on genetic resources agreed to a draft protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from their use as basis for further negotiation, setting the stage for its adoption at the Nagoya Biodiversity Summit to be held in October 2010, in Japan.

But this is from the more … ahem … disinterested IISD Reporting Services:

On Sunday morning, Working Group Co-Chair Casas noted that the revised draft protocol (UNEP/CBD/WG-ABS/9/L.2) would constitute the basis for further work, but as indicated by a footnote, was not negotiated and is without prejudice to the rights of parties to make further amendments and additions to the text. The Working Group adopted the draft protocol as Annex I to the meeting report. Delegates then presented outstanding issues and text proposals, for inclusion in the report. In the afternoon, plenary discussed proposals for an intersessional process from Cali to COP 10 in Nagoya. Delegates finally agreed to suspend ABS 9 and resume it in June/July for a 7-day session which Japan committed to funding. Later, delegates made minor revisions to the report (UNEP/CBD/WG-ABS/9/L.1) and adopted it as amended. Following closing statements, Co-Chair Hodges gavelled the meeting to a close at 7:57 p.m.

Sounds like it’s all to do between now and Nagoya, not just a case of adopting the existing draft. Or do I have it wrong? This kind of thing is why I’m happy I don’t have to go to many such meetings…

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Not nibbles: on women, sweetness, reinventing the CGIAR, tomatoes and seed swaps

Notes from all over: In Vietnam, a woman working on the conservation of indigenous livestock breeds — Professor Le Thi Thuy — has won the 2009 Kovalepskaia Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. ILRI’s blog post on the award tells us more about Kovalepskaya (a pioneering Russian mathematician) than about Professor Thuy or the project she directs. But we’re here to tell you that pigs may be involved.

In Australia, a casual mention of sugarbag flies took me to a post about the Weipa mission in “North Queensland on the west side of Cape York, the pointy bit at the top”. There’s a lot more to this post than the heritage of honey and how to make good use of it; not as sustainably as you might imagine, in many cases. In any case, it is a great read.

In France, right now, and elsewhere at other times, the burning question on everyone’s lips: Are Gates and CGIAR a good mix for Africa? We’re not going to rehearse all the old arguments here — SciDev.net does that for us. But we might be even bolder and ask whether the new CGIAR will be a good idea not just for Africa but for the hungry everywhere. Maybe not …

In academe, an odd paper in Nature Genetics focuses on a single gene that can boost tomato yields by 60% or some. Sure, that’s not going to feed the world, but it might make ketchup supplies more secure. The press release casts the discovery as an explanation of heterosis, which seems like overegging the pudding, but perhaps that’s just me.

In the informal seed sector, two posts that illuminate a different way of spreading agricultural biodiversity. The Guardian (no, not that one, the one that “covers Prince Edward Island like the dew”) reports on a local meeting of Seeds of Diversity Canada. I wonder how many potato varieties there are on PEI. And over at Our Earth/Ourselves, Madronna Holden ruminates on How to feed the world. A big part of her answer: A Propagation Fair.