Well, maybe. The article in The Monitor is a bit confused. Yes, there are wild rices in Uganda. I know because I was (marginally) involved in the 1997 Sida-IRRI project which collected wild Oryza in Eastern and Southern Africa. The material has been conserved since then in the National Genetic Plant Resources Centre for Crops in Entebbe, and has now been evaluated — successfully, it would seem — for resistance to Yellow Mottle Virus. Which is great. But the crossing with cultivated rice has not started in Uganda, I don’t think. The crosses that are alluded to in the article seem rather to have been between Asian rice and cultivated African rice (Oryza glaberrima), presumably aiming to replicate the success of Nerica in West Africa. Anyway, good luck to Drs John Mulumba Wasswa and Jimmy Lamo with the breeding programme.
India’s National Biodiversity Action Plan released
Yes, it’s out. India’s NBAP is online. Unfortunately, the pdf cannot be searched, for some reason, but a quick skim reveals that it does include significant consideration of agricultural biodiversity issues. For example, there’s a discussion of the role of the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in ex situ conservation of crop genetic resources.
Here’s the money quote, on page 52:
Traditional Indian farming systems are characterized by remarkable diversity owing largely to wide spectrum of agro-climatic situations and indigenous cultivars and native breeds adapted to specific local conditions. Notable efforts to collect crop diversity and documenting of livestock breeds notwithstanding, there is a need for on-farm conservation providing appropriate incentives. Ex situ conservation is expected to provide a strong backup to the efforts to facilitate access and meet unforeseen natural calamities. While there is an increasing coherence of policies and programmes on in situ, on farm and ex situ conservation, there is need to further strengthen these efforts.
The recommendations follow on pages 59-60. With regard to on-farm conservation, they are:
- Identify hotspots of agro-biodiversity under different agro-ecozones and cropping systems and promote on-farm conservation.
- Provide economically feasible and socially acceptable incentives such as value addition and direct market access in the face of replacement by other economically remunerative cultivars.
- Develop appropriate models for on-farm conservation of livestock herds maintained by different institutions and local communities.
- Develop mutually supportive linkages between in situ, on-farm and ex situ conservation programmes.
And, on ex situ conservation:
- Promote ex situ conservation of rare, endangered, endemic and insufficiently known floristic and faunal components of natural habitats, through appropriate institutionalization and human resource capacity building. For example, pay immediate attention to conservation and multiplication of rare, endangered and endemic tree species through institutions such as Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding.
- Focus on conservation of genetic diversity (in situ, ex situ, in vitro) of
cultivated plants, domesticated animals and their wild relatives to support breeding programmes. - Strengthen national ex situ conservation system for crop and livestock diversity, including poultry, linking national gene banks, clonal repositories and field collections maintained by different research centres and universities.
- Develop cost effective and situation specific technologies for medium and long term storage of seed samples collected by different institutions and organizations.
- Undertake DNA profiling for assessment of genetic diversity in rare, endangered and endemic species to assist in developing their conservation programmes.
- Develop a unified national database covering all ex situ conservation sites.
- Consolidate, augment and strengthen the network of zoos, aquaria, etc., for ex situ conservation.
- Develop networking of botanic gardens and consider establishing a ‘Central Authority for Botanic Gardens’ to secure their better management on the lines of Central Zoo Authority.
- Provide for training of personnel and mobilize financial resources to strengthen captive breeding projects for endangered species of wild animals.
- Strengthen basic research on reproduction biology of rare, endangered and endemic species to support reintroduction programmes.
- Encourage cultivation of plants of economic value presently gathered from their natural populations to prevent their decline.
- Promote inter-sectoral linkages and synergies to develop and realize full economic potential of ex situ conserved materials in crop and livestock improvement programmes.
Lots of sensible stuff, and it’s good to see agrobiodiversity in there at all. I was particularly interested in the recommendation to establish a national database bringing together all genebanks. Let’s see what happens, maybe it’s a small step out of genebank database hell. No mention of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, though.
LATER: Yes, indeed, the ITPGRFA is mentioned on p. 90. Thanks, Eliseu. Sorry about that. Still trying to work out why I can’t search the pdf… Ah, can’t search online, but can if I download it first.
LATER STILL: Forgot to mention that there are also a number of references to crop wild relatives, check out Table 4, for example.
Assisting crop wild relatives
You may remember my recent nibble on assisted migration. I also sent the link to the CropWildRelatives discussion group, which elicited this response from Nigel Maxted at the University of Birmingham:
This is indeed an interesting question. My first reaction was that it was a purely academic exercise that will do little to benefit overall biodiversity and probably could not be applied for a wide range of species even if this were economically and practically feasible. It might even do harm because government might use research like this to play down the impact of climate change and avoid the necessity of taking harsh economic decisions. This may well be the case, but for the key 500-700 globally important CWR I do think this is the sort of research we should enacting now. These critical 500-700 species will be so vital to future food security, not least to combating climate change itself, that we need to ensure that they are allowed to continue evolving in situ in the changing environment and make doubly sure we have these species’ genetic diversity adequately conserved ex situ. The research need not focus on the entire 500-700 CWR but could be passed through a modeled climate change impact filter first to identify those species most likely to be impacted in the short term and most likely to be successful in transposition. Perhaps as a community the time is right to systematically address this issue.
Nibbles: Easter Island, Quail, Kimchi, Assisted migration, Solar, Training materials, Ancient wine squared, Economics, Wild food
- People of Rapa Nui innovated as they collapsed.
- “Extinct” Bird Seen, Eaten. Sorry, National Geographic, but I can’t better that headline. Worthy of Fark.
- Kimchi madness.
- Coming to a protected are near you: moving species to save them from climate change. CWR, anyone?
- Shrinking the C footprint of traditional peanut processing. Via.
- 15 Evolutionary Gems: alas, nothing from crops, livestock. Surely domestication could have made it in there.
- “Bulgarian wine cellars have already announced that they will plant vines with the mysterious and newly recovered variety of grapes near the Orpheus tomb.”
- And more ancient wine, this time from Malta.
- Bioversity International wises up on dismal science, launches new economics webpages.
- Wild forest foods big hit at FAO booth at Lao and International Food Festival last weekend in Vientiane.
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.