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A LandMark that could leave more of a mark

“…these maps do us no good unless they become public knowledge and indigenous rights are recognized by all who have ambitions to grab our lands.”

That’s Abdon Nababan of the Indonesia’s Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance, on LandMark, “a new tool launched today by a broad partnership including the World Resources Institute (WRI), …the first online, interactive platform for mapping lands managed by native communities.” And I would add that such maps will remain of limited usefulness even when they’re in the public domain if they cannot be manipulated, combined and shared much more easily than is currently the case.

Here’s Exhibit A. It is possible, with a little (well, a lot) of techie fiddling (no, not by me), to superimpose an image of what’s in Genesys (the green dots) with an image of what’s in LandMark (the brown polygons showing officially community-managed lands).

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But it’s not pretty, I think you’ll agree: it gets even uglier when you zoom in, which is why I’ve decided not to let you do it. And you can’t do much with it anyway, apart from eyeball it. Plus it may well be against the terms of use of either or both Genesys and LandMark.

Well, we’ll see how LandMark develops, maybe a Google Earth export is in its future, in which case people like Abdon Nababan will be able to get the most out of it. And also the national plant genetic resources programme in Brazil, say, which may well be interested in supporting indigenous communities in protecting their crop diversity more than is perhaps occurring now. That would be a win-win. A triple win, in fact, if you add me.

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Breeding locally for local cooks

I’m not sure if we’ve ever linked to the Culinary Breeding Network before. This is a bunch…

…of plant breeders, seed growers, fresh market farmers, chefs and produce buyers engaged in developing and identifying varieties and traits of culinary excellence for vegetable crops in the Pacific Northwest region.

It came to mind because they have a cool, very informative Instagram account, as you can see from a post from a couple of days back…

…and because of yesterday’s post here on how to measure diversity. As I tried to say at the time, sometimes, for all its faults, number of varieties can be a useful metric. And even when it’s not, the names of the varieties are often a lot of fun.

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Featured: Saffron quality

The Phytophactor has a question:

Isn’t it the saffron crocus stigma that serves as the dye/spice? The article says stamens. I’ve bought cheap stuff that included both, but it was intended to be used as a dye for Buddhist monks’ robes.

I think the high quality stuff is just stigmas, but anyone else care to clarify? Incidentally, if readers want to see wonderful pictures of the saffron harvest in Iran, go to Sidewalk Lyrics’ twitter stream and search for #Khorasan.

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National Genetic Resources Advisory Council discusses birds and bees and diversity

Speaking of meetings…

The National Genetic Resources Advisory Council (NGRAC), a sub-committee of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics (NAREEE) Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is holding a meeting November 9-10, 2015, in Baton Rouge, LA. The meeting will focus on the conservation and utilization of livestock, aquatic and honeybee genetics; a discussion on genetic diversity and genetic vulnerability; and cross cutting issues related to genetic resources and Tribes.

All NGRAC meetings are open to the public, and Matthew Dillon of Seed Matters, who is a “general public member” according to the NGRAC website, has been posting about it all over social media. There is, for example, a photograph of bee insemination that those of our readers who are on Facebook might find irresistible. I for one found this Instagram offering interesting:

Robust discussion today. Diversity is complex, of course. #seed #genetics #agriculture

A photo posted by Seed Matters (@seed_matters) on

I wish I’d been there to fight the corner of “number of varieties” as a way of measuring genetic diversity and vulnerability. Problematic, sure, but useless? That seems harsh. If nothing else, the hunt for lost (or maybe lost) heirloom varieties has great resonance with the public.

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Answering the big genebank questions

A couple of important conferences are coming up and, as readers know, we like to keep on top of such things. So if you’re going, and would like to blog for us, or are thinking of tweeting the proceedings, let us know. Some big questions are being pondered, so it should be fun.

First on the agenda is the Tri-Societies meeting, this year in Minneapolis, on 15-18 November. 1 With that, the conoscenti will know, goes the award of the Frank N. Meyer Medal for Plant Genetic Resources, which on this occasion will be presented to Dr Paul Gepts, who I believe is an occasional reader of our blog. Congratulations to Paul, who will deliver a lecture entitled A More Intensive Use of Crop Genetic Resources? Hopeful Future or Business As Usual? The answer seems, perhaps not surprisingly, to depend on more and better data.

Then in January there is PAG XXIV in San Diego and its Genomics of Genebanks workshop. Particularly intriguing is a talk from our friends at the International Potato Center, who ask Are you getting what you ordered from your genebank? The answer to that question seems to be: not always, but we’re working on it. Somebody mention better data?