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Featured: Bitterness and toxicity in food

After a rich commentary on a recent post on how farmers detoxify cassava, Pablo seems to be about to throw up his hands in despair, but steps back from the brink:

I begin to think that ignoring examples such as these, with lessons and clear examples that are rigorously scientific and practical is not about lack of evidence or oversight, but a policy to eliminate smallholder agriculture and the knowledge it holds. This would remove any viable alternative to the agro-industrial hegemony over our food and our diverse agrarian landscapes. I hope my fears are misplaced.

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Can Science Feed the World?

That’s the question posed by the title of a big splash in Nature. The answer, in case you don’t want to work your way through the various contributions, as summarized in a handy pamphlet, is yes, by enabling sustainable intensification, although not on its own. So nothing wildly new there. Also not new is that once again agrobiodiversity gets the shaft. One of the articles does focus on plant breeding, but it doesn’t mention the need to ensure the long-term availability of its raw material — crop and livestock genetic diversity, including that in genebanks. There’s also a piece by Jeffrey Sachs and numerous co-authors on the need for better global monitoring of agriculture, which doesn’t mention the desirability of monitoring levels of agricultural biodiversity on-farm. Oh well.

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Reviving the Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter

We have received almost thirty comments endorsing the idea of reviving the Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter. Now Robert Koebner, one of the people behind the initiative, replies. 1

I appreciate all the supportive messages, thanks everyone. I wanted to respond to the issue raised by Hannah J and elaborated by Paul N. The situation with regards publication outlets for academic, fully peer-reviewed PGR papers is that there are currently 2 fully dedicated journals (GRACE and PGR:C&U), while a number of plant breeding type journals also publish PGR material. The gap is for the “grey” literature — a lot of this never gets disseminated, not because its quality is poor, but because it does not easily fit the format and requirements of a normal scientific paper. Our aim with PGRN is definitely not to compete with GRACE etc., so we have no intention of seeking an impact factor. We want to offer the community a means to communicate at a more practical, less academic level. We do not want PGRN to become a bin for rejected papers, and for this reason there will be a firm quality control imposed. I would expect the rejection rate to be well over 50%, going on our experience with PGR:C&U, where this rate is nearer to 75%. At the same time, we would want to be as responsive as possible to the readership; one way to do this (there may well be many others) is to offer the opportunity for opinion-based, rather than exclusively results-based contributions.

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Not the world’s first red apple

Of course it is tiresome for you, Dear Reader, to have to wade through me correcting the mainstream media, but when duty calls I am powerless to refuse.

The BBC was all breathless a couple of days ago with news of a new apple variety on sale in England that has red flesh. Oooh. Ah. It’s like a tomato! And a large chunk of the little report was taken up by the breeder explaining that no GM was involved, just 15 years of crosses and selection and 20,000 seedlings rejected in favour of three that made the grade as worthwhile varieties. 2

Niedzwetzky-apple.gif What really struck me, though, was not the utter imbecility of the reporter, or even what the bloody apple looked like. It was the fact that nobody had seemed to ask whether this was in fact the world’s first red-fleshed apple, as reported by FOXNews and The Daily Mail. 3 It isn’t that there are some wild red-fleshed apples out there, and this is the first one that’s good to eat. There have even been a fair number of commercial, good to eat, red-fleshed varieties. It’s just that reporters swallow rubbish so uncomplainingly. Google is your friend.

The photo (by Kayirkul Shalpykov, Bioresource, and lifted from the Living on Earth website) is of “Niedzwetzky apples (malus niedzwetzkyana), famous for their red flesh. There are 111 known trees left in the world”. Not sure I believe that either.