Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
As you watch the World Cup final, which is due to start any minute now, reflect on the fact that the players will be running up and down, as they have been throughout the tournament, on local Bermuda grass overseeded with perennial ryegrass produced by Manitoba farmers for DLF Pickseed. 1 No country is self-sufficient even in turf grasses. Not even mega-diverse Brazil. But at least it now has something to blame for that 7-1. Apart from David Luiz.
The reaction by the Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture (AIRCA) to the communiqué put out by G20 chief agricultural scientists after their latest meeting in June in Australia brings up some good points, but also reminds me that we probably didn’t give that event the space it warranted. Just a Nibble, if memory serves.
Anyway, good to see diversity highlighted in a couple of places. 2 The participants “agreed that diverse farming systems will require a broad range of innovations and approaches,” which seems to imply that they think those diverse farming systems are a good thing, and worth striving for. And here’s another interesting excerpt from their communiqué: they
…recognised the importance of biodiversity of plants, animals and micro-organisms in an agricultural setting, and noted with interest the global and stakeholder driven DivSeek initiative. We recognised the importance of the next generation genetic resources, open access information system — that will enable the speeding up of crop improvement processes and thereby enhance resilience, food and nutritional security.
Nice enough, but am I the only one to find that comma after “genetic resources” problematic. I think they meant “next generation, open access information system on genetic resources” there. Who says punctuation is not important.
Susan McCouch, who’s been involved in DivSeek, was on youtube recently, by the way. She doesn’t mention DivSeek directly, but her talk does suggest why something like it is needed.
But is Congress listening?
Genesys is trialling an improved data filtering mechanism. Say you want to find Aegilops tauschii from Armenia with frost tolerance. Go to Browse and play around with the Filter button. If you have trouble, see if this little video helps you figure it out. The answer, by the way, is that there are 14 accessions that satisfy those requirements, all at ICARDA. Here’s where they are:
Did you get the same answer? Any suggestions for improvements?