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Sovereign rights raises its ugly head

Where’s my guide to the netherworld of genebank databases when I need him?

I need him to make a somewhat snarky point. A recent commenter objects to the characterisation of Kasalath, the “wild” rice that’s been in the news lately, as Indian.

Kasalat is actually a Bangladeshi variety not Indian. In Bangla it means Kacha Lota or green shoot. From time immemorial it has been grown in the eastern district of Sylhet of Bangladesh from where it might have gone to India…. [I]t is just plain wrong to describe it as an Indian variety.

But as Wikipedia tells us,

The history of Bangladesh as a nation state began in 1971, when it seceded from Pakistan. Prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, modern-day Bangladesh was part of ancient, classical, medieval and colonial India.

So when was Kasalath collected? Or, to put it another way, what was the name of the nation state in which the place that Kasalath has grown from time immemorial found itself at the time someone collected it?

That’s what databases are for, right? IRIS, The International Rice Information System, has 12 entries for entities called Kasalath, three of them at IRRI and one in India. I couldn’t find anything as dull as an accession date for any of them. IRIS is a bit unfriendly, 1 although thanks to it I did also discover that Kasalath is one of about 400 varieties selected to form a Rice Diversity Panel. Until Beatrice returns from his travels, or logs on, that’s the best I can do.

And the point, of course, is to suggest that the very idea of a variety grown since time immemorial belonging to any Johnny-come-lately nation state is, alas, a cruel joke.

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The complexities of conserving crop diversity in Italy

A certain Mario C. has collected 178 signatures for a petition to save the “Banca dei Semi di Bari”:

We the undersigned ask the judges responsible, the National Research Council, and the political authorities at national, regional, provincial and city levels to “Save at any cost the Seed Bank of Bari.” Including if necessary delivering these seeds to us or other third parties who love nature, so they do not die. For example, as has been done by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Brescia when they delivered Green Hill beagle dogs to ordinary citizens (about 2500 beagles) to save them from vivisection.

The Italian genebank in question, the largest in the National Research Council’s (CNR) network, is thus described:

It’s the first seed bank in Italy and the second in Europe. It maintains 84,000 germplasm samples from more than 60 genera and over 600 species of cultivated plants. It was established by FAO to expose the high genetic erosion caused by the Green Revolution.

Skipping blithely over the somewhat distorted version of the history of the Bari genebank, the numbers quoted 2 suggest that this is a reaction to a recent article in a local paper, which had this to say about the nature of the threat to the genebank, unhelpfully not mentioned in the petition:

Way back in 2003, the temperature of the cold rooms rose above the optimal, that is -20-0°. Failure to repair the rooms in timely fashion by the CNR has caused extensive damage to the genetic heritage so that, following a dispute between the Bank and the National Research Council (CNR), an investigation by the judiciary found CNR to be responsible. Although the samples have been released from seizure since 2009, the Region of Puglia apparently has not yet acquired them to provide for their regeneration. No one else has offered to do this and they are back in the hands of the CNR. Meanwhile an immense and invaluable genetic agrobiological patrimony is perishing abandoned.

In past years appeals by, among others, Dr Perrino to protect the biodiversity represented and perpetuated through these seeds from being destroyed have gone unheeded. To prevent the worst is simple, just regenerate this germplasm by planting it. Inexplicably, no one seems interested in doing this, starting with the political class, according to Perrino, former director of the Institute of Germplasm of CNR, Bari (1983-1993, 1998-2002).

Now, I don’t know to what extent these allegations are justified. There’s no mention of any problem in Italy 3 in the recent big official EU document on PGRFA. Not that you’d necessarily expect to find mention of such problems in big official EU documents. There’s been nothing much on the grapevine. Not that that’s always reliable. The whole thing may just be a misunderstanding. But this has been going back and forth for years now. It would be nice to have some data from the Bari genebank to settle the question once and for all. Regular germination tests are surely carried out there. The results are surely documented. Why not publish them, and set everybody’s mind at rest? And to what extent is the issue moot anyway, the material in Bari being duplicated elsewhere?

Meanwhile, there’s a press release from the Italian ministry of agriculture contextualizing the recent EU court decision that the prohibition on commercializing seed of traditional varieties is invalid. Jeremy said there was probably more to it than that, and of course there is. Apparently, you still have to register your traditional variety in Italy. But it only takes 150 days, the ministry assures us, it’s not too difficult, and entirely free.

Ex situ or in situ, conserving crop diversity can sometimes seem a vale of tears.

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Featured: Accession identity

On that “wild landrace” rice, Mike Jackson echoes a thought we’ve often had:

I wonder if the accession number(s) of Kasalath (presumably from the International Rice Genebank Collection – IRGC?) is cited in the full article. I have often argued with IRRI scientists of the need to cite the actual accession ‘provenance’ of the germplasm used in research and breeding, rather than just referring to this variety or that. There is a myth that a variety with the same name is genetically the same. And from our own evaluation of IR36 accessions (I think that was the variety, or maybe IR64) in the IRGC made in the 1990s there were at least six different types – even though the breeders stated, with confidence, that they knew what was the variety and what was not. I also hope that the actual lines in which this gene was discovered have been pure-lined and a sample entered into the IRGC – under a new accession number, of course!

I looked at the paper, and couldn’t spot anything resembling an accession number, but it is pretty dense.

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Wild about rice landraces

There’s been some interest in a new rice variety that grows better in soils deficient in phosphorus. The BBC touted Wild rice gene gives yield boost and said that

A gene from wild Indian rice plants can significantly raise the yield of common varieties in nutrient-poor soils.

Moments later, however, the report informs readers that

The gene came from a variety called Kasalath, native to nutrient-poor soils of eastern India.

I guess we all have a ways to go in raising media awareness about the subtleties of genetic resources. A wild plant would hardly be a variety that has a name now would it?

IRRI’s press release and the scientists’ paper in Nature are both clear that the gene in question came from a “traditional rice variety”. And the BBC’s report — despite later referring to “wild varieties” — picked that up. But someone, probably some poor put-upon sub, decided they knew better.

What does it matter? Partly for reasons of conservation. That’s of no interest to the BBC, but IRRI proudly “conserves more than 114,000 different types of rice in the International Rice Genebank”. If they are there, does it matter whether they are still in farmers’ fields? At least one person, however, is using the mistaken characterisation to ask an odd (rhetorical?) question:

[T]his research supports claims that wild crop relatives hold an inventory of genes, the value of which is huge. How do we protect more effectively this rich resource?

I’ll leave others to answer that one, if they must.

As for the gene in question, it seems to promote root growth, which is what enables the plant to scavenge more nutrients from poor soils. I may well have more to say on that in a day or two.