Category: Policy

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Flooding and genetic erosion

The floods in Tabasco are causing enormous human suffering and extensive damage to crops, homes and infrastructure, but one of their impacts has not been mentioned. Of course, crops in the field have been lost, which is bad enough, but it is likely that farmers’ stores of seed are also gone, as was the case in Bangladesh during recent flooding there. That probably means that farmers in flood-affected areas have lost much of the agricultural biodiversity which they will need to rebuild their livelihoods — and lives. Will they get it back?

Unfortunately, seed relief efforts — focused on the immediate emergency — have sometimes not taken a long-term view of the problem, introducing the wrong varieties in the wrong way, and thus making a sustainable recovery that much harder. In the words of a recent paper commenting on the seed relief effort after Hurricane Mitch: “Providing seed in the wake of a disaster can seem both appropriate and simple. Often, it is neither.” Advice on agrobiodiversity-friendly, sustainable seed relief is available, but whether it is followed or not in Tabasco we shall see. ((See also Richards and Ruivenkamp’s Seeds and Survival for a review of the role of crop genetic resources in reconstruction after wars in Africa.)) In any case, we can probably add some measure of genetic erosion to the horrors the Mexican flooding has wrought.

Later: As chance would have it, the day after I posted the above Eldis summarized a review of seed aid interventions.

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Free the grape!

I blogged a few weeks back about the shift in the approach being taken in Europe to protect traditional farmers and producers — and the agrobiodiversity which underpins their livelihoods — in the face of globalization. Rather that erecting subsidies and tariffs to compete on price, the idea is to move upmarket and sell expensive niche products to rich foreigners. Of course, that requires a quality control and labelling system, such as appellations of origin (aka geographical indications).

Well, there’s a downside to such systems. I was idly going through my feed reader today and I ran across an old post on The Fruit Blog (a great blog which unfortunately seems to have gone dormant of late) which pointed to a 2004 article in the International Herald Tribune about how legislation is being used in Europe to basically outlaw some old American grapevine varieties:

The story has been all but forgotten in France today except among a handful of wine experts and a gaggle of bureaucrats who enforce the law. The French government banned wine made from American grape varieties on the grounds that it tasted like raspberries and was thus offensive to the palate. The European Commission adopted the French rule in 1979, making it illegal to grow these varieties anywhere in the European Union.

The percentage of outlawed American grape varieties is relatively small in France. But the offending vines are also sprinkled widely throughout several East and Central European countries that have recently joined or will soon join the European Union.

“You can’t tell the Hungarians, Bulgarians and Romanians to uproot their vines,” says Pierre Galet, perhaps the world’s leading expert on grape varieties. He believes the ban on American varieties is anachronistic.

Shades of what Jeremy has called Europe’s draconian seed laws. The US, in contrast, is not shy about mixing up the American and European grapevine genepools (I have blogged about this before: funny how much I write about wine).

As I say, the IHT article is a few years old, and things may have changed. Something is afoot in the EU with regards to wine legislation, but I wasn’t able to find any more recent analysis of the specific issue of the old American varieties. If you know the latest Brussels scoop on this, let us know.

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A farmer speaks. And then another.

The first day of the Governing Body meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture yesterday was enlivened by two speeches from farmers. Sunda Ram Verma is from Sikar in Rajasthan, while Guy Kastler is French. Neither, of course, is a typical farmer. Typical farmers don’t come to Rome to address the Governing Body of the ITPGRFA. But each had interesting things to day.

Sunda Ram Verma has devised new techniques for saving water and was recognized for his work with cumin, guar bean and pearl millet diversity. According to the quasi-official meeting report, “Verma described his lifetime of developing and sharing improved crop varieties, said farmers would benefit from access to resources for screening new varieties, and noted that he has received no benefits from commercialization of his own improved varieties.” One might wonder why not. Because India does not permit such a thing? Or because he never sought cash benefits? I think we should be told. And in passing, one might further wonder why an NGO blog didn’t even record Sunda Ram Verma’s name. Too much respect?

Guy Kastler is no stranger to international agro-politics, having tussled to keep GMOs out of Europe and more generally for some relaxation of Europe’s draconian seed laws. Again, the quasi-official report says that Kastler “distinguished between small- and large-scale plant breeders, and called for a dynamic Treaty that supports farmers’ rights, such as the right to sell their seeds, an inventory system to support their breeding approaches and plant descriptions, and a fund to support farmers’ consultations worldwide. He said the ITPGR subjects farmers to national laws, some of which undermine their rights.” His speech, however, is available at the Via Campesina web site, so you can see for yourself whether that’s a fair summary.

I wasn’t there, but I’m told that there was some light head nodding among the delegates; I wasn’t told whether this represented gentle agreement or incipient sleep. Reading Kastler’s words, I somehow wonder whether the nodding was affirmative. He’s drawing attention to the fact that farmers (and gardeners) in Europe are the least free in the world, and that the Treaty, while guaranteeing them certain rights, does absolutely nothing to deliver those rights. Nor does it apparently admonish the governments — parties to the Treaty — who deny farmers the rights they signed up to in the Treaty. Could it be that those governments aren’t actually serious about farmers’ rights?

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