- Natural History Museum wants a wikipedian. So, in a different way, does Crops for the Future.
- The poetry of New York cheese labels.
- Another crop genome bites the dust.
- Kew contemplates the snake gourd.
- Now you can outsource your experiments.
- Strange bedfellows: small organic farmers and the Tea Party, a marriage made in Nebraska.
- Got research on underutilized species (or indeed sustainable food chains) you think you might like to publish?
- The OECD publishes a huge study of the biology of Brassica crops. Yes, the OECD.
Brainfood: Peanuts, CC and biodiversity data, Climate change and vegetables, Biodiversity indicators, Lettuce diversity, Brazilian intensification, Brazilian natural products, English organic, Bolivian traditions, Protecting sea cucumbers, Urban meadows, Crop expansion, Chinese forests, Peach palm, Ancient RNA, Sweet potato movement, Date conservation
- A study of the relationships of cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea) and its most closely related wild species using intron sequences and microsatellite markers. It’s a wise peanut that knows its parents: A. duranensis and A. ipaënsis, apparently.
- Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information. The devil is in the detail. But basically, the Non-Commercial CC license is not what it sounds like.
- Projecting annual air temperature changes to 2025 and beyond: implications for vegetable production worldwide. The devil is in the detail.
- Essential Biodiversity Variables. There are even some on genetic diversity, and domesticated species get a mention. And no, not this sort of thing, do be serious.
- Genetic composition of contemporary proprietary U.S. lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) cultivars. Romaine and crisphead much less diverse than leaf types. About 10 cultivars main ancestors. Couple wild species used. Lots of other cool stuff in this issue of GRACE. Maybe one day we’ll do a Brainfood on a single issue of a journal? Would people like that? Is anyone listening?
- Insights into Brazilian agricultural structure and sustainable intensification of food production. That insight is spelled GMO. Ah, but with added agroecological and educational goodness.
- Development of a Natural Products Database from the Biodiversity of Brazil. No doubt soon to be patented. See above.
- Food production vs. biodiversity: comparing organic and conventional agriculture. There’s a tradeoff between biodiversity (off-farm) and yield (on farm), at least in lowland England.
- Laggards or Leaders: Conservers of Traditional Agricultural Knowledge in Bolivia. Abandonment of traditional practices, including crop diversity, more to do with getting work off-farm than with age or education.
- Sea cucumbers in the Seychelles: effects of marine protected areas on high-value species. They are positive.
- Creating novel urban grasslands by reintroducing native species in wasteland vegetation. Seeding can create diverse native meadows in urban settings, even if people use them. I don’t know why this should make me feel so happy.
- Crop Expansion and Conservation Priorities in Tropical Countries. So much for peak farmland.
- Role of culturally protected forests in biodiversity conservation in Southeast China. They’re important, especially for tree diversity.
- Peach palm (Bactris gasipaes) in tropical Latin America: implications for biodiversity conservation, natural resource management and human nutrition. They’re good for nutrition and income, but could be even better.
- Deep Sequencing of RNA from Ancient Maize Kernels. That’s right — RNA! It confirms previous ideas, and offers a new tool to look at domestication.
- Historical collections reveal patterns of diffusion of sweet potato in Oceania obscured by modern plant movements and recombination. Speaking of which, the old tools are not that bad. Yes, the sweet potato did come to Polynesia in prehistoric times from South America. But not only.
- On-Farm Diversity of Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L) in Sudan: A Potential Genetic Resources Conservation Strategy. Yup, there’s potential alright. Now can we see made real?
Nibbles: Large pumpkin, Wheat genome, Timorese nutrition, Seeds for Needs, PPB, Fruit trees, Nutrition ROI, Ecosystem services, Coffee costs, Cacao flavour, Pig slaughtering, Goats threats, Dog diet, Australian migrations
- Wow, that’s one huge pumpkin!
- Genomic whiz-bangery, which was apparently not involved in producing the above pumpkin, continues to hold much promise for wheat yields. And your jetpack is in the mail. I would ban the use of the word promise in this type of article. But since I can’t do that, I promise not to link to them ever again.
- Jess gets to grips with Timorese nutrition. Get those local landraces back from any genebank that has them, Jess. And don’t forget to collect any remaining ones.
- Then you could do some cool Seeds-for-Needs-type stuff.
- And maybe some local breeding too?
- And don’t forget local fruit trees!
- Because you know investing in nutrition is really cost-effective.
- Though of course it’s not just about the money.
- Especially when it comes to coffee.
- Or cacao for that matter.
- They shoot hogs, don’t they? Maybe even in East Timor. Goats, alas, have problems of their own.
- And as for dogs, we forced them to digest starch. What even the dingo? I bet there are dingo-like dogs in East Timor.
Nibbles: Farmer suicides, Ethnobotanic gardens, Seaweed, Sweet potato origins, Sustainable livestock, Cacao
- Farmer suicides in India blamed most recently on high food prices. The BBC debunks the numbers, and about everything else about the claims, without mentioning IFPRI.
- Reviving the ethnobotanic gardens at the University of Kent in England.
- Zanzibari women are successfully farming seaweed.
- Sweet potatoes came from all over.
- Unpacking sustainable livestock, one slide at the time.
- Sandy Knapp et al. chase Solanum all over South America.
- Everybody’s developing their own sustainable cocoa strategies. Not ideal.
TraitAbility and the Treaty
I don’t know enough about either vegetable breeding or intellectual property protection to venture a guess as to the significance to that industry of Syngenta’s new online effort to streamline the licensing of some of their varieties and associated enabling technologies, which they’re calling TraitAbility. I’m not even sure what success would look like, either for Syngenta or anybody else. Alexander Tokarz, Syngenta’s Head of Vegetables 1 suggested at last week’s event accompanying the launch of the TraitAbility portal that he might well be happier if other companies were to follow suit with similar opening-up initiatives in the next couple of years than if he were to be inundated with e-licenses from day one. Full disclosure: I know that because I was there, at Syngenta’s invitation:
#AccessIP Success for Syngenta would be adoption of model not necessarily lots of licenses in first month.
— AgroBioDiverse (@AgroBioDiverse) January 17, 2013
No word yet from either those other companies, potential licensees, or indeed growers. But nevermind all that. I still think TraitAbility may turn out to be quite important, for two related reasons. First, because it’s a clear parallel to the International Treaty, at least in the sense that — in albeit a smaller, more halting way, and at the other end of the variety development pipeline — it is ostensibly trying to make access to genetic diversity and technologies simpler and more transparent. Which suggests the intriguing possibility that the ITPGRFA, if it didn’t actually force anyone’s hand, at least in some way paved the way, or helped create the space, for what Syngenta at any rate is heralding as something of an innovation. And second, because, whether or not there was in fact such a causal link with the ITPGRFA, the parallel which is indubitably there might suggest to Syngenta that some of that license money should maybe flow back into conservation. Innovation is needed all along that pipeline to make it sustainable, not just at the business end.
LATER:
@AgroBioDiverse Ha, love the footnote. Also like donation idea, why not for signers during first 6m? Spread the word! http://t.co/mBm9YqUo
— Alexander Tokarz (@alexandertokarz) January 19, 2013