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Billionth seed banked

The Guardian reports that the Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, recently deposited the billionth seed in its genebank. Note, that’s not a billion species, or even a million, but the billionth seed ((Which is to say, an entirely manufactured reason, which worked, for getting a bit of press coverage.)). Normally such blatant manipulation would be beneath our exalted notice, but Kew wisely chose a useful plant on which to bestow this singular honour.

  • In parts of Tanzania women depend on this species for local beer production as a major source of income.
  • It is used to make various types of local baskets for transporting produce, such as tomatoes in Iringa.
  • It is in high demand as a building material. It is used for scaffolding, furniture, general house construction, and fencing. Fences are susceptible to damage by termites and borers. The small stems are used for pipes and arrow shafts

All from FAO, which does not seem to think it is all that endangered. Still, Kew thinks it is worth banking, and that’s good enough for us.

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Perk up people, it’s about your survival

Someone called Bradford Plumer, whom I had not previously come across, has a longish post asking why people don’t seem to care about the ongoing mass extinction and wishing that more writers on the subject “would really hammer home why humans should care about the loss of biodiversity”. Funnily enough, he couches his entire argument in terms of natural processes and ecosystems and what their collapse might mean. And he quotes agriculture, and especially monoculture, exclusively as problem, not solution. But the only example he gives of the sort of example that might might “get people to perk up” is the possibly looming pollination crisis caused by a shortage of bees.

Until there is a wider understanding that agriculture is part of nature, and not separate from it, and that we humans are far more dependent on the food providing services of agriculture than on any other ecological service, I doubt that there’s going to be much perking up anywhere.

There’s not a lot of understanding of that in Brad’s posts or the comments on it, but I live in hope.

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Traditional Knowledge Newsletter

The first issue of Pachamama, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s newsletter on traditional knowledge issues, is out. I found the article on sacred sites particularly interesting. Though agricultural biodiversity is unfortunately not mentioned explicitly, the author, Erjen Khamaganova, does say that:

Preservation of sacred sites is a key way to restore traditions of a healthy way of life, healthy diet and healthy habits in forms that are unique and suitable for each region and each indigenous nation.