Threats

June 24, 2008

Commission embraces agricultural biodiversity?

This news item out of the European Commission seems to be very important, so I think I’m justified in reproducing it in full below, especially as the specific item does not yet have a url all to itself (though there is a fairly general one):

The Commission adopted on Friday June 20 a proposal that will help preserve biodiversity. Member States had already endorsed the proposal in mid April. The proposal to protect seed varieties of agricultural crops, which may be threatened by genetic erosion, will also enable small plant breeding companies to supply local markets with naturally adapted seed varieties. These seed varieties are mostly old locally used varieties threatened by extinction.

The proposal foresees derogations from the EU seed marketing legislation for seed varieties that are naturally adapted to local conditions, but which currently cannot be marketed because they do not fulfil certain criteria. Under EU legislation, seed varieties must undergo an approval process and get listed on the national and common seed catalogues before they can be marketed within the territory of the EU. These rules ensure that EU farmers have access to high quality seed. Certain varieties, which are not found on these catalogues, are still important to ensure that plant genetic diversity is not diminished. The Commission has therefore proposed that these varieties could be placed on the catalogues without official examination, once they meet some minimum standards.

Jeremy has blogged several times about this. I guess the devil will be in the detail, but it does look encouraging. Anyone have more information?

June 22, 2008July 7, 2009

Sorghum endures

How much crop genetic diversity have we lost? At one level, the question is easy to answer: three quarters over the last century. That’s certainly the number that’s most often quoted.

But that doesn’t make it right. In particular, I have it on very good authority that the figure may in fact be traceable back — a la Chinese whispers — to a statement in Fowler & Mooney’s 1990 book Shattering: “As the mid-1970s were reached, three-quarters of Europe’s traditional vegetable seed stood on the verge of extinction.”

Not quite the same thing. Anyway, be that as it may, the existence of a dominant narrative hasn’t stopped people going out into the field and — the horror! — actually collecting data.

Continue reading “Sorghum endures”

June 19, 2008June 23, 2008

UG99: The Phantom Menace?

Very good news from the United States Department of Agriculture. Breeders are about to release the first wheat lines that incorporate several genes for resistance to UG99, the new race of rust fungus that threatens wheat worldwide. One line will be available to growers on the east coast of the US. All will be available to breeders worldwide to develop new varieties adapted to local conditions.

Part of the effort leading to the new wheats has been a screening of more than 5000 accessions from several genebanks. One outcome of this massive evaluation exercise has been the discovery that UG99 had overcome many more resistance genes than original estimates. That’s why it has been important to pyramid several resistance genes into the new varieties. Just where those resistance genes came from I don’t know. But the USDA does say that the breeders “also will develop new sources of genetic resistance to rusts from three wild relatives of wheat”.

Good luck to them. Certainly the wheat farmers of Iran, ((I cannot resist a quick aside. At the FAO high-level meeting a couple of weeks ago one of the Iranian delegates dropped by my stall. I struck up a conversation.

Was he worried about UG99?
No, our scientists can control it.
Really? Where can I find out more?
They have communicated with the Authorities.
Really? Where can I find out more?

And so it went, with neither of us making much progress, and I was reminded mostly of the golden age of Stalinist genetics, an oxymoron if ever there was one.)) Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India — the current front in the fight against UG99 — need all the help they can get. But a tiny part of me really rather hopes that the new varieties are not in fact a success.

The world badly needs another demonstration of the power of pests and diseases to destroy food supplies and the importance of agricultural biodiversity to protect us from them. Southern corn blight is the poster child for the value of diversity.

That outbreak more or less created the modern move to conserve crop diversity in genebanks, a move that has lost its impetus as the world forgets that food security requires the ready availability of lots and lots of agricultural biodiversity.

So while I am truly glad that breeders are making progress against UG99, I’d also like to see UG99 make real inroads into the developed world’s wheat crops, just as a reminder, lest they forget. ((I stole the Sith from here. If it is copyrighted, I apologise. Contact me, and I’ll remove it.))

June 19, 2008June 20, 2008

Nibbles: Bananas, Wheat, Cameroon, Bees, Eden, Millennium Villages, Organic, Yam, Ag origins, Apricots

Compare and contrast the banana and the Big Mac. Dan Koeppel takes it to the masses.
Lamenting the loss of “amber waves of grain”. Ingrate.
Cameroon’s agriculture vulnerable to climate change. I’ll alert the media.
Look what I got you for National Pollinator Week next week; a World Checklist of Bees. Neat-o.
Celebrate food and farmers in Eden.
“The core of the strategy is a short-term provision of improved seeds suited to the local environment and fertilizers like Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and urea accompanied by advice on how to use them.” Sounds familiar…
Meanwhile, in non-Millennium Villages: “While his maize cobs were smaller than others, the seed was of a much higher quality; the fibre of his cotton was also much longer.”
Japanese yam fields in peril. Yams as in Dioscorea or sweet potato or what? So annoying.
Neolithic myths?
California apricot grower explores Central Asia, comes up trumps. Jeremy comments: CandyCots? I think I want to be sick.

June 17, 2008February 27, 2009

Nibbles: No-dig, Joe, Gritty Veg, Insect food, Forests, Finger millet, Bees

No-dig, (almost) no-water surplus veggies in Lala land. Via.
Smell the coffee and wake up.
Yet more urban agriculture reviving neighbourhood culture.
Giant grasshopper is good for you.
And speaking of Google Earth (see below): you can use it to track disappearing forests as well as disappearing gourds.
“Our mother who grinds ragi at home is far more superior to our father who rules this country.” Finger millet makes a comeback in India.
Aussie report urges honey bee protection. Good on ya, mate.