Posts

Posted on

What causes famines?

The terrible famine in the Horn of Africa has brought forth torrents of comment, much of it about the cause of the famine. Fortunately, perhaps, cause is such a very slippery word. Causes can be very close in time and space to their effects, or they can be way the hell and gone. (Likewise solutions, although that’s another story.) So we can have experts of various stripes telling us that the famine was caused by climate change, wasn’t caused by climate change, was caused by civil unrest, was caused by low rains, was caused by the western agro-military hegemony etc etc etc. One of my favourites is Bill Easterly’s comment on Ethiopia:

It’s not the rains, it’s the rulers. … drought has not been as devastating to Ethiopians as their own autocratic governments.

The Lancet likes that quote too, in it’s call today for “a collective response” to health in the Horn of Africa. But while The Lancet acknowledges that there are many “causes,” each with its own peculiarities, it also seems to think that the famine is unacceptable because we live in “an era of advanced agricultural productivity and transportation networks”. In other words, food from somewhere else did not arrive in time.

The Lancet does say that “More and longer-term investments in agriculture and health in Africa are needed alongside a collective global response” and looks for leadership to China which feeds 20% of the planet’s population on 7% of its arable land. 1 What kinds of solutions are we likely to see, aside from food from somewhere else arriving more quickly next time? I’m not nearly expert enough to offer advice, but one thing does sound very fishy, and that is the idea of using irrigation to grow more crops. ILRI, which has long experience working with pastoralists in the area, is keeping a close eye on the famine, has published several recent blog posts that suggest that using water for forage for livestock, and allowing pastoralists to move freely to better grazing are sensible long term solutions. The latest post at ILRI Clippings is about a book, Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy: Livelihoods in Pastoralist Communities, and sports a conclusion that a lot of people probably don’t want to hear.

[F]uture development activities need to be built on the foundation of the livestock economy, instead of seeking to replace it.

That surely requires some understanding of the role of livestock in the life support systems of the region, and a recognition that, you know, maybe there are local limits to carrying capacity. Of all the many causes of the famine, that seems to be the one that dare not speak its name, at least not in public.

The Lancet draws itself up to its full height to declare, ringingly:

“Such a humanitarian disaster must never be allowed to happen again.”

Which is the standard formula for ending that kind of piece.

But it will be.

Posted on

The birth of “genetics”

“Like other new crafts, we have been compelled to adopt a terminology, which, if somewhat deterrent to the novice, is so necessary a tool to the craftsman that it must be endured. But though these attributes of scientific activity are in evidence, the science itself is still nameless, and we can only describe our pursuit by cumbrous and often misleading periphrasis. To meet this difficulty I suggest for the consideration of this Congress the term Genetics, which sufficiently indicates that our labours are devoted to the elucidation of the phenomena of heredity and variation: in other words, to the physiology of Descent, with implied bearing on the theoretical problems of the evolutionist and the systematist, and application to the practical problems of breeders, whether of animals or plants. After more or less undirected wanderings we have thus a definite aim in view.”

The Wellcome Library celebrates William Bateson‘s 150th birthday a couple of days ago.

Posted on

Mashing maize seed systems and climate change

ResearchBlogging.org Smallholder farmers overwhelmingly save their own seed, maybe getting a bit extra from relatives, friends, neighbours and, very occasionally, further afield. If climate change is going to affect growing conditions — and it is — will the so-called informal sector be able to supply them with material that can thrive in the new conditions?

A new study suggests that, at least for smallholder maize farmers in eastern Mexico, getting seeds that will cope with climate change might not be too much of a problem. Mauricio Bellon of Bioversity 2, and his colleagues David Hodson of FAO and Jon Hellin at CIMMYT, wondered where Mexican maize farmers got their seed and how climate change might affect their environment. 3 So they asked farmers in 20 communities in four different agro-ecological zones: wet lowland, dry lowland, wet upper midaltitude, and highland.

Across all the zones, most of the seed lots are saved by the farmers from their own fields. Less than a third comes from off the farm, and most of that is from family, neighbours and friends. Very little comes from shops, government programmes, or strangers. But the system is by no means static. A quarter of the farmers said that they experimented with farmer landraces or modern varieties from further afield. Highland farmers are especially likely to experiment.

The rate of retention is low, however, particularly for improved varieties, suggesting that farmers know about improved varieties, have tested some of them, and have found them wanting.

Farmers get more than 90% of all seed lots within 10km of the community. The same goes for altitude. Almost all seed lots come from less than 50 metres higher or lower than the farm. The fact that farmers get their seed very locally, with little recourse to outside material, suggests that what they have locally is well adapted to local conditions. So how much will those conditions change?

Again, the scientists asked, not farmers but as many climate models as they could get their hands on. All the models predict that it will get dryer and hotter in the study areas. When the researchers looked in detail at how conditions in 1 km square “pixels” within the 10 km radius around the communities changed, they found that except in the highland communities, “the predicted future maize environments already are present within the 10-km radial zones and … the average distances to the predicted novel environments are relatively short”. Bottom line?

[F]armers should have relatively easy access to planting material adapted to the agro-ecological conditions predicted under climate-change scenarios.

In the highlands, however, things will not be so simple. Conditions for maize change most in the highlands, with more land becoming unsuitable and probably greater fragmentation of maize-growing areas. Traditional seed systems are unlikely to be able to provide the kinds of varieties farmers there will need, but those farmers also have a history of obtaining and experimenting with seed lots from further afield.

Researchers and extension workers should perhaps concentrate their efforts to help farmers prepare for climate change in those highland areas.

Having shown that the seed supply for one crop in one region is not as vulnerable to climate change as might have been expected, the big question is: how general might this be? Roughly half the highland maize grown in the developing world is outside Mexico. Farmers there will need to prepare too. And many other crops important to smallholder farmers are sourced through traditional, informal seed systems. As the authors note:

This approach, based on quantifying the spatial scope of traditional seed systems and relating these spatial scopes to potential climate shifts that would modify the distribution of growing environments and hence the fit between the germplasm to which farmers currently have access to and the one needed in the future, can be applied to different systems and circumstances, although the specifics probably will vary from one case to another.

How soon might those additional studies happen?

Posted on

Berry go Round part deux

Kate over at Beyond the Brambles put out an exuberant floristic Berry-go-round a few days ago. Her blog, her choices, although it did seem a little light on actual botany, to me. So once again I’m abusing a position of privilege to share some of the other submissions to July’s carnival. And if you would like to leave a submission for next month’s effort, hosted by Dave Coulter at Osage and Orange, well, just pop on over and fill in the submission form.

Speaking of Dave, he draws attention to a little known aspect of Detroit’s green renaissance. Sure, we’ve all heard about the urban ag and stuff, but he points to the birth of an amazing maze.

Mazes are stripes, and some plant leaves have stripes. On, then, to Part 2 of Joseph Tychonievich’s account of variegation at Greensparrow Gardens. I remember a great exhibit at Chelsea on variegation …

Greensparrows lead inexorably to rose gentians, of the square-stemmed sort. JSK has the lowdown on Sabatia angularis. And, for what they’re worth, Green Comet Milkweed (Asclepias viridiflora), thought to have been a victim of a nasty road accident, and Clasping Milkweed (Asclepias amplexicaulis). Herpetologists will recognize the specific epithet, but will they know what’s clasping what.

You want taxonomy? We’ve got taxonomy. And evolution. And links between the two. Joseph Craine at Wild Plants Post goes into the evolutionary history of the grasses and the forces that might have driven their adaptive radiation.

It’s all a question of niche exploitation. Or is it? Sarcozona goes all biblical on us as she attempts to untangle the knots surrounding invasive species. I’ve almost given up trying to control the ones that invade my terrace.

We’ve been a bit busy ourselves here at The Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog, hosting a guest post on the food that fed a thousand canoes and wondering whether Katherine of Aragon could possibly have been handing her pet a highly appropriate monkeynut (Arachis hypogaea)? The jury is still out.

And finally, a salute to the man without whom … Daniel does Gregor, and so did Google.

Have fun.

Posted on

Brainfood: Barley genes, Stability & Diversity, Access & Benefit Sharing,