Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

March 24, 2014

Who pays for banana research?

A little squib in The Economist a week ago caught my eye.

The banana world was split over the merits of a merger between Chiquita and Fyffes that will create the fruit’s biggest distributor. Antitrust regulators will look closely at the deal, especially in Europe, which imposed stiff tariffs on Latin American bananas until 2012. But some say a merger makes sense, given the current squeeze in profit margins as a result of the costs of tackling potentially disastrous diseases in banana crops.

There’s a graph too, of banana exports by country. But that’s besides the point. The point, as I see it, is in that final sentence. I’d love to know how much Fyffes and Chiquita (and Dole and Uncle Tom Cobley and all) are contributing to research to combat the spread of Tropical Race 4 of Fusarium wilt. Indeed, some would say that the industry is the problem.

March 24, 2014February 27, 2014

Brainfood: Carpathian landuse, Yield & biodiversity, Cajanus @ICRISAT, Wheat meddling, Grape acne, Safflower diversity, Mangosteen origins, Agroforestry and SDGs, Brazilian Gir

Forest and agricultural land change in the Carpathian region—A meta-analysis of long-term patterns and drivers of change. Collapse of socialism bad for agriculture, good for forests. At the level of cover anyway, who knows what’s happened to diversity.
Closing yield gaps: perils and possibilities for biodiversity conservation. Better yields potentially good for birds, but everyone needs to work together.
The Wild Genepool of Pigeonpea at ICRISAT Genebank-Status and Distribution. There are still some gaps.
Meddling Wheat Germplasm to Augment Grain Protein Content and Grain Yield. I just love that title.
Interkingdom transfer of the acne causing agent, Propionibacterium acnes, from human to grapevine. First time ever, apparently, that a human pathogen attacks a crop. But do I have to start worrying about wine?
Discrimination and genetic diversity of cultivated and wild safflowers (Carthamus spp.) using EST-microsatellites markers. C. palestinus is the closest.
New evidence on the origin of mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana L.) based on morphology and ITS sequence. Not an interspecific hybrid after all.
Knowledge gaps and research needs concerning agroforestry’s contribution to Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. Can agroforestry concepts and practices form an effective, efficient and fair pathway towards the achievement of many Sustainable Development Goals? Yes, but only if governance of food production is multi-sectoral and system-based.
History, structure, and genetic diversity of Brazilian Gir cattle. Diversity is not as restricted as might be feared, so it can probably take a breeding programme with high selection intensity.

March 22, 2014March 23, 2014

Globalized diets paper globalizes

You may, unless of course you’ve been visiting Mars, have come across in the past couple of weeks coverage of Colin Khoury’s (along with co-authors) paper on “Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security.” That’s Colin to the left in his office at CIAT, when I visited him last week. The paper has really caught the imagination of the media, and is now one of PNAS’s most attention-grabbing articles ever, in the top 5% of all articles in fact. One of the better write-ups was in NPR, but there’s lots, lots more, in multiple languages. Including a brief mention by World Bank VP Rachel Kyte and CGIAR Fund Council Chair at a Wageningen University event. But where did the idea for the study come from? Well, we are not prone to boasting here at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog, but please forgive us on this occasion if we point out that it is a post by Colin in these very pages about four years ago that marks the beginning of his journey to superstardom. From little acorns…

And let us not forget that we can do something about these trends.

March 17, 2014March 23, 2014

Brainfood: Intercropping, Biodiversity loss, Fisheries evolution, Pigeonpea diversity, Upland framing, Alpine agroforestry, Italian core tomatoes, Madagascar adaptation

Is there an associational resistance of winter pea–durum wheat intercrops towards Acyrthosiphon pisum Harris? Yep. Which is important for organic systems, apparently, because they are martyrs to this aphid.
Interactions between climate change and land use change on biodiversity: attribution problems, risks, and opportunities. Interactions make things complicated, but fortunately there are some pretty simple things you can do that address multiple drivers of biodiversity loss. Including for crop wild relatives?
What can selection experiments teach us about fisheries-induced evolution? Harvesting can lead to rapid genetic change and lower fisheries yields.
Genetic Diversity and Demographic History of Cajanus spp. Illustrated from Genome-Wide SNPs. Asia species different to Australian. Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh centres of origin and domestication. More diversity within populations and landraces than between states.
Mixed Grazing Systems Benefit both Upland Biodiversity and Livestock Production. Livestock grazing management on upland farms influences economic outputs, biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions, all at once. Mixed upland grazing systems consisting of sheep and cattle is your win-win-win. Heirloom breeds no help, alas. Because they don’t count as biodiversity, I guess.
What plant traits tell us: Consequences of land-use change of a traditional agro-forest system on biodiversity and ecosystem service provision. Both abandonment and intensification of traditionally managed larch agroforestry in the Alps are bad.
Genetic diversity in Italian tomato landraces: Implications for the development of a core collection. You may need up to 25% of a southern Italian collection of open-pollinated tomato landraces to get a decent core. But since the collection is only 75 landraces anyway…
Extreme vulnerability of smallholder farmers to agricultural risks and climate change in Madagascar. Main coping strategy seems to be eating less food. And moving from rice to cassava, beans and wild yams. Scary.

March 12, 2014

Ask Luigi anything

Oh my. Quest Science is digging into Svalbard. I wonder what they’ll turn up.

Did you know there is a state-of-the-art seed vault buried deep inside a mountain on a remote island near the North Pole? Now is your chance to ask a scientist more about this initiative to safeguard the future of the world’s crop diversity. Post your questions in the comments below or send a tweet to @QUESTScience with the hashtag #QUESTseedvault.

QUEST’s television host, Simran Sethi, will do a Google+ Hangout with Luigi Guarino, Senior Scientist with Global Crop Diversity Trust, in early April. We look forward to including some of your questions in the conversation!