Category: Threats

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Agrobiodiversity in trouble in Cameroon

Ivo Arrey Mbongaya of the African Centre for Community and Development in Cameroon has a blog on the Eldis Community and has recently discussed threats to two different sorts of agricultural biodiversity in his country. Apparently, goat rearing is in decline, because of the disappearance of grazing land, harsh policies about strays and the lack of veterinary services. He doesn’t say if a local breed is involved, however, and does make reference to “efforts by Heifer Cameroon to distribute cheap animals.”

Also in trouble is “eru,” or Gnetum africanum, a shrub whose leaves are consumed as a green vegetable. Unsustainable harvesting and land use changes are taking their toll, and Ivo recommends taking the plant into domestication.There’s been some work on that by ICRAF and others.

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Nibbles: Space, Grape shapes, Genetic diversity, Diseases, Bamboo, Geographic indications, Cacao

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Agrobiodiversity and the food crisis

UNEP has just published The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. ((Nellemann, C., MacDevette, M., Manders, T., Eickhout, B., Svihus, B., Prins, A. G., Kaltenborn, B. P. (Eds). February 2009. The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. A UNEP rapid response assessment. United Nations Environment Programme, GRID-Arendal. ISBN: 978-82-7701-054-0)) I found out about it because its illustrations are separately available on the GRID-Arendal website and I subscribe to its feed. Which is weird, because I’d have thought UNEP would make more of this. Maybe I just missed the announcement of the launch.

Any agricultural biodiversity in it, I hear you ask. Actually, perhaps surprisingly, yes. There’s a box on “Using crop genetic diversity to combat pests and diseases in agriculture” on page 57. There’s a box on “Enhancing sustainability through the use of crop wild relatives” on page 74. And, though admittedly it doesn’t address agrobiodiversity specifically, there’s a section on increasing research investment in agriculture on page 81. I’ll take that.

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Rooting for the tubers

The Root Crops Agrobiodiversity Project in Vanuatu is inventorying varieties in various villages around the archipelago, and coming up with some astonishing results. ((Although an old Pacific hand of my acquaintance disputes the inclusion of the Solomon Islands in this statement from the press release: “In other Pacific archipelagos, such as New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands, the introduction by the Europeans of new root and tuber species, combined with the arrival of a market economy, has totally disrupted the existing systems.”)) But, crucially, the work will not stop there. One of the objectives of the project is “to identify new varieties aiming at broadening the existing genetic bases and to propose them to producers and users, taking into account their needs and preferences.” So it’s more than the usual 3Cs — collect-characterize-conserve. There’s also creation, and dissemination, of new diversity, via seed production. That’s not that easy to do with taros and yams, but then, neither is conservation in conventional field and in vitro genebanks. It’s a very sensible idea to get the diversity increasing and moving around, rather than locking it up on research stations.