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TraitAbility and the Treaty

I don’t know enough about either vegetable breeding or intellectual property protection to venture a guess as to the significance to that industry of Syngenta’s new online effort to streamline the licensing of some of their varieties and associated enabling technologies, which they’re calling TraitAbility. I’m not even sure what success would look like, either for Syngenta or anybody else. Alexander Tokarz, Syngenta’s Head of Vegetables 1 suggested at last week’s event accompanying the launch of the TraitAbility portal that he might well be happier if other companies were to follow suit with similar opening-up initiatives in the next couple of years than if he were to be inundated with e-licenses from day one. Full disclosure: I know that because I was there, at Syngenta’s invitation:

No word yet from either those other companies, potential licensees, or indeed growers. But nevermind all that. I still think TraitAbility may turn out to be quite important, for two related reasons. First, because it’s a clear parallel to the International Treaty, at least in the sense that — in albeit a smaller, more halting way, and at the other end of the variety development pipeline — it is ostensibly trying to make access to genetic diversity and technologies simpler and more transparent. Which suggests the intriguing possibility that the ITPGRFA, if it didn’t actually force anyone’s hand, at least in some way paved the way, or helped create the space, for what Syngenta at any rate is heralding as something of an innovation. And second, because, whether or not there was in fact such a causal link with the ITPGRFA, the parallel which is indubitably there might suggest to Syngenta that some of that license money should maybe flow back into conservation. Innovation is needed all along that pipeline to make it sustainable, not just at the business end.

LATER:

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For people who can’t read many different words

‘BIODIVERSITY’

We love animals and green things and we need them for food, houses, to make sick people better, to clean the air and water, to hold down the ground, to know things and to be happy outside. For all of these things, lots of different kinds of animals and green things are better than only a few kinds. So we’re scared because the animals and green things are not safe from some of the things we do, like when we cut trees down, put bad smells in the air, take good things out of the big water and put bad things in and make the air around our rock in space get hot too fast.

Karen James wrote this, using only the thousand most common words.

Can you do better?

p.s. There’s a Tumblr for that.

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Is a new Cornucopia in the works?

Stephen Facciola’s Cornucopia is the bible of everyone interested in the oddities of the edible landscape. With it’s densely packed pages, numerous lists, and astonishing detail, it is everything you need wrapped in soft covers. It is also quite old. Now Facciola has posted an advert for a “Photographer, ethnobotanist, foodie”

Applicant will be photographing plants, plant parts, food products, food ingredients, etc., at ethnic and gourmetfood markets, farmers’ markets, germplasm repositories, market gardens, orchards, farms, botanical gardens, and seed banks in the U.S. and overseas. Must be willing to make long term commitment.

I can’t wait to see the results.

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Fellowship available on Agrobiodiversity and Climate Change

The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), offers a one year full time research fellowship (with the possibility of extension) with the level of financial support according to the academic and professional profile of the applicant.

There is a need to understand what policies can efficiently and equitably enhance farmers’ livelihoods by increasing their capacity to adapt to climate change. Climate change is expected to increasingly threaten the conservation of wild and domesticated biodiversity, including, agrobiodiversity, as changing local climates place habitats and species at increasing risk of extinction. Agrobiodiversity and associated ecosystem services are key factors that affect the resilience of agroecosystems and food security. However, the largest investments in food production continue to be associated with agricultural innovations to increase the productivity of some major crops and livestock, which are often advocated as crucial for agricultural climate change adaptation. Much less emphasis is being put on local systems that rely on existing natural, human and social capital assets such as agrobiodiversity, traditional knowledge and collective action institutions, such as seed systems, to reduce vulnerability and ensure food security.

Full details if you scroll down on the BC3 website.

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Horticulture CRSP response on drying beads

Kent J. Bradford, Peetambar Dahal and Brenda Dawson of Horticulture CRSP have responded at length to the comments made by Robin Probert and Fiona Hay on their factsheet promoting the use of Zeolite as a possible alternative to silica gel to dry seeds. Many thanks to them all for taking the time to engage in this debate. Please read the rebuttal in full, it’s very detailed and will be of great interest to anyone who keeps seed healthy for a living. However, if I were to be forced to pick a couple of quotes as take-home messages, they would be these:

At present, drying beads are probably economical only for high-value vegetable seeds or germplasm repositories, but there are simple ways to utilize drying beads in forced-air drying systems that could be adaptable to larger seed or commodity volumes, such as in combination with large plastic grain bags that are coming into use.
…
We believe that drying beads should be of particular interest for seed banks in developing countries where power outages make continuous operation of refrigeration and dehumidification equipment problematic. We expect that drying beads combined with hermetic containers could largely replace dehumidification of large storage rooms in seed banks. Enclosing a small quantity of beads in foil packet or glass jar with a seed sample would be a great solution for local seed banks that may not have the drying equipment that Robin mentioned.

Which are not altogether dissimilar conclusions to the ones we originally came to, but as I say, read the whole thing and make up your own mind. It would be great to hear from anyone out there that has experience of using these drying beads, whether in a genebank or other context. If you do, or know anyone who does, leave a comment below.