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Promoting the sweet potato in Africa

Good to see the March edition of Hortinews magazine focusing on the sweetpotato in Africa. 1 I found it a little difficult to navigate the feature online, although you can also just download the whole issue as a pdf, so let me link directly to two stories on orange-fleshed sweetpotatoes (OFSP):

Now, a lot of effort has gone into developing and disseminating OFSP in parts of Africa, and their potential importance in addressing vitamin A deficiency is not disputed. However, not everything has gone totally smoothly. As an IDS report, coincidentally also just out, points out:

Donor-funded initiatives have played a central role in developing all stages of the OFSP value chain, with a particular focus on breeding new varieties that appeal to the preferences of both producers and consumers. Development projects have also supported the dissemination of planting materials and funded public awareness campaigns. However, information collected for this case study suggests that, so far, interventions have not achieved widespread uptake of OFSP. Only a small minority of farming households in intervention districts grow OFSP. 2 Commercial farmers who supplied OFSP planting materials to project distribution systems have found that, after project funding ended, the local market was not viable, and have ceased production. Meanwhile, awareness of and demand for the crop among consumers have been very limited; one survey conducted in an intervention district found that only 2 per cent of households consumed OFSP. Traders and food processors report that there is little demand, and dealing with the crop is not profitable. This state is perhaps unsurprising given that the introduction of OFSP is still relatively recent, that project efforts have been relatively scattered and uncoordinated, and that there has been little focus on commercially viable value chains. Yet the challenges encountered in Tanzania provide important lessons for other agriculture-nutrition initiatives.

But no need to panic, all is not lost. It’s still relatively early days yet, and the report also makes some sensible recommendations to turbo-charge adoption:

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I think it would have been useful, as well as fair, for Hortinews to point out what still needs to be done, as well as what has been achieved. But maybe that doesn’t sell glossy magazines.

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Setting genebank data free

There’s a strange little article on SciDevNet about the petition lodged with the UN by Norman Warthmann, of the Australian National University, and Claudio Chiarolla, of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in France, “to create a legal framework requiring governments to make data from the genetic sequencing of plants freely available.”

Strange for three reasons. One, why not make more of an explicit connection with DivSeek, which is trying to work through exactly these issues and was the subject of another article on the same website a few months ago?

Two, why link to a pdf of the text of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, when said instrument has a perfectly nice website?

And three, somebody should really have checked this chart of germplasm transfers under the International Treaty, because most of the “countries” listed are not countries at all, but in fact the international centres housed by Mexico (CIMMYT), the Philippines (IRRI) etc.

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The international genebanks managed by the CGIAR Centres are by far the largest contributors to germplasm flows under the International Treaty, which is not something you’d be able to gather from this without a lot more background and context.

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Asian PGR networks redux?

FAO says that “[r]epresentatives and scientists from 15 countries in Asia have agreed the establishment of a regional network to exchange information on conservation, preservation and utilization” of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Now, I like regional PGR networks, I really do. I even helped coordinate one for a few years. But this has been tried before in Asia. What will be different this time? Hard to say from the press release, but there’s a full report on the way, and we’ll blog about it when it’s out.

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The rough value of genebanks

In 2012, The NPGS [the US National Plant Germplasm System] budget was approximately $47 million. Funding for the NPGS has been relatively stagnant over time. In real terms, agency funding peaked in 2003, at approximately $53 million in 2012 dollars (fig. 1). While direct comparisons between costs of a genebank and its benefits are not possible, 3 for context, we note that U.S. farmers paid $20.3 billion for seed in 2012 (USDA\National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2013). Thus, the costs of public ex situ plant conservation in the United States are a small fraction—under half of 1 percent—of the value of the eventual seed market. At the same time that budgets have decreased, demand for NPGS germplasm has reached historic highs (fig. 2).

Gotta love it when economists give up on quantitative data, and settle for qualitative comparisons.

When compared to the rather large benefits of genetic enhancement, the costs of genebank operation appear relatively small.

But do read the whole of USDA’s Using Crop Genetic Resources To Help Agriculture Adapt to Climate Change: Economics and Policy by Paul W. Heisey and Kelly Day Rubenstein. There is some data in there, and that perennial fall-back of economists, a model. The main findings, if you just want to just skip to the bottom line, were that genebanks are worth it, but that better data and some pre-breeding would help.

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Featured: Heirloom apples

Cary Fowler thinks many heritage (or is it heirloom) apples are alive and kicking:

While some of these varieties are gone, many still exist. In fact, I have most of those pictured in my own orchard. Old varieties can be obtained from a number of sources such as Cummins Nursery, and Century Farm Nursery. Recently a new organization — the Temperate Orchard Conservancy — was formed in Oregon to rescue Nick Botner’s 4000+ apple variety collection. Even allowing for synonyms, this might be the largest varietal collection in the world.

Do your part and plant some!