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Diversity in rice varieties: what caused it?

Larry Moran has a very good article on the genetic diversity found in the DNA of rice varieties. I won’t try to summarize what he has to say, because he says it so well. But I will emphasize something that he doesn’t. The biologists who looked at rice wanted to know what caused the pattern of diversity they see across rice vareties. One possibility is selection. The other is the founder effect, where a very small subset of a larger population gives rise to a new species (or variety) so that the new species contains less diversity than the ancestor population from which it sprang. In rice, neither explanation on its own is sufficient.

An agricultural scientist might not care one bit, or might simply assume that it was all due to selection by farmers. But the truth is that it needed a combination of the founder effect and positive selection to create modern rice diversity. The founder effect relates to the fact that Oryza sativa indica and Oryza sativa japonica were both domesticated independently from the wild Oryza rufipogon, maybe a few times. The results of those early events set up the foundation genes for rice. Then selection was brought to bear and created the diversity we now see. Luck and hard work, every time.

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Back to biofuels

On the one hand, there’s a good chance that the rush to biofuels will create conflict, especially in developing countries. Indeed, according to Gristmill it is already happening in places like West Kalimantan, in Indonesia, “where the rush to plant palm-oil plantations is generating conflict with Indonesians who grow rubber trees and other crops on their small plots of land”. And on the other, scientists are helping turn biodiesel into a “proper” industry, with profitable by-products that make the whole enterprise more profitable. The New York Times reports on USDA researchers who are exploring ways to make use of the waste products of biodiesel, including some with horticultural applications.

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Seed sleuth

There’s a glowing portrait of Ken Street, a plant hunter, in the Sydney Morning Herald. Street works with ICARDA, the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, based in Aleppo, Syria and spends much his time in the wilds of central Asia, searching out crop diversity. The piece is a bit gushy for my taste, and I’m not sure I agree with everything Street is quoted as saying. “We have been eating genetically modified organisms for 10,000 years” turns the phrase “genetically modified organisms” into meaningless guff. But he does make some good points about the amount of diversity that survives — for now — in places like Armenia and Tajikistan. If you want a glimpse into the life of a man they call “an agricultural Indiana Jones,” that’s what you’ll get.

Luigi unavailable for comment.

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What the first Green Revolution taught India

What would you say were the lessons of the first Green Revolution in India? That wealthier farmers on good land need even more help to boost their yields? Or that the smaller, poorer farmers by passed (or even actively harmed) by the Green Revolution should be the focus of attention now?

OK, so it’s an unfair question. Intensive farming does need continuing research and development to thrive and expand. And rural smallholders, while they could be assisted in their quest for food security, are not the answer to national problems. Nevertheless, I confess to being more than a little dismayed by the report of a recent speech by India’s new president Pratibha Patil to the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

“The structural weaknesses of the agriculture sector include low levels of public investment, exhaustion of the yield potential of new high yielding varieties of wheat and rice, unbalanced fertilizer use, low seeds replacement rate and low yield per unit area across almost all crops.”

Patil further said that the reasons for low agri-production are the diminishing size of land holdings, degradation in land quality and soil health due to improper nutrient application, the looming threats of global warming and climate change, and emergence of new pests and diseases.

Weak linkages between research and extension, limited credit access at reasonable rates of interest, non-remunerative prices, inadequate market access, poor rural infrastructure and insufficient post-harvest infrastructure such as warehousing, cold chains, and agro-processing facilities are other features plaguing our agricultural production environment, she added.

Many of the “reasons” Patil enumerated look from afar like the consequences of poor intensification rather than weaknesses not addressed by the Green Revolution.

Just the teeniest passing reference to the benefits of agricultural biodiversity, especially for the farmers who did not get much out of the Green Revolution, would have pleased me no end.

There’s more here: apparently Patil’s speech was a curtain-raiser for FAO Director General Jacques Diouf. But the Indian papers don’t seem to be recording what he said.