Category: Policy

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Mexico City protects maize landraces

In an almighty panic about GM maize, the government of Mexico City has sprung energetically into action. The result is a “Declaration of Protection of the Maize Breeds of the Mexico Altiplano.” There are said to be “more than 60” maize landraces in the part of the Altiplano that falls within the confines of the Distrito Federal, which I assume is the area over which the Declaration will be applicable.

The Declaration includes provision for:

  • establishing a research programme to improve local maize breeds
  • supporting farmers who sow only native seeds
  • promoting the use of organic fertilizer and pesticides
  • banning of the purchase and distribution of transgenic maize in Mexico City
  • establishing a germplasm bank for the Altiplano’s maize seeds

I have a few questions about all this, but I’ll just pose one here. Has anyone asked the CIMMYT genebank, just outside Mexico City, whether by any chance it already has the Altiplano’s maize landraces?

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Asking the tough questions

  • If, 10,000 years ago, Neolithic plant breeders had domesticated another plant that would have today produced a highly desirable crop, what would that be, and is it too late to start now?
  • How can we combine traditional plant breeding techniques, biotechnology and GMOs to prepare the world’s crop plants for oncoming climate change?
  • How can we retain biodiversity in crop resources?
  • Will every farmer in the world be able to get a crop genotype specifically produced to get the best from his/her field?
  • Given the medium to long term unsustainability of oil-based high input industrial agriculture, should we be developing high yielding perennials to replace existing annuals?

Some of the questions submitted to the Journal of Experimental Botany from which will be selected the 100 most important questions facing plant science. And they’re pretty good questions. I found them by searching for “crop” and “agriculture.” The tag line for the survey — and title of the CABI blog entry which pointed me to it — is: How can plant scientists change the world? Go on and submit your own ideas. Conservation of agrobiodiversity does not seem to be particularly well served thus far. You’ve got until the end of March.

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Research Into Use policy briefs online

DFID’s Research Into Use Programme has just come up with a crop of policy briefs on agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Several of them have agrobiodiversity relevance, if not themes.

Browsing RIU’s publications list, I was also struck by its Lessons from Pro-Poor Seed Systems in East Africa and Lessons from Plant Breeder and Farmer Partnerships.

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The pedigree of tolerance to submergence in rice

You may remember a post a few days ago about submergence-tolerant rice. Our friends at IRRI have been kind enough to explain to me where the gene in question — sub1 — came from.

I hope I get this right. It seems the immediate parent for IR64-sub1 was from the cross IR49830, which in turn came from the cross IR22385, made in 1978. The source of the gene at the time was a line called FR13A, which was derived from a germplasm accession called IRGC 8887. That was acquired by IRRI in 1963 from India, but with no further passport data.

If you want to get an impression of the complexity of the pedigrees of modern varieties, below is the one for IR64-sub1, with IRGC 8887 highlighted in yellow, thanks to the pedigree visualization tool that IRRI has been developing (click to enlarge).

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It’s a great illustration of the reason for the Multilateral System of access and benefit sharing being put in place by the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In a bilateral system, such as the one envisaged by the Convention on Biological Diversity, how would you work out the contribution of IRGC 8887 — or indeed any of the other germplasm involved in the pedigree — to the overall success or otherwise of the final product?