Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Ford Denison lays it on the line:
I would like to see independent evidence of the superiority of transgenic corn under drought. The only published data I’ve found comes from tests by Monsanto, the company that developed it. I will be discussing this topic in greater depth in my forthcoming book: “Darwinian agriculture: where does nature’s wisdom lie?”
Can’t wait, for the data and the book.
Some call it plant breeding, but really it’s just vegetable eugenics. I get to create an all-conquering master race of ocas which will go forth and occupy vegetable gardens up and down the land. Megalomania was never so cheap, entertaining and – legal. I’m nothing but a Dalek in dungarees.
Rhizowen tells us where he’s coming from.
The Field Museum joined Flickr Commons in April 2009, inviting the public to help describe a selection of our historic photographs.
And that includes some incredible photos from botanist J. Francis MacBride’s expeditions to Peru in 1922 and 1923. Like this one, for example.
There’s some agrobiodiversity in there. If you can help out with describing any of the photos, leave a comment on its Flickr page.
Of course there’s plant breeding and plant breeding, but if you really want to know how rewarding it can be, take a look at Rebsie Fairholm’s latest round-up of her pea-breeding project. The point Rebsie makes so clearly is that while there is a little bit of technique to master, a successful project is much more about good record-keeping, patience and passion. Right now she’s got a new variety that is stable for pod colour, flower colour and edible pods (and a creamy calyx colour “that gives this variety an extra beauty factor in the garden”). This year, the fourth generation, she’ll be working on height, pod type, flavour and seed colour. Even now her selections look remarkable, and I trust her on taste. Things can only get better in the coming season.
Don has kindly sent us a quote from that paper about the Thai government rethinking agricultural sustainability that Jeremy nibbled earlier today. He suggests it might be more interesting than Jeremy made it out to be.
The Department of Agricultural Extension (DOAE), created under the MOAC with assistance by the World Bank, played a direct role for disseminating Green Revolution innovations, including new high-yielding varieties, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and associated labor-saving machineries, in every subdistrict through the staff stationed in the district center… Yet, except for Central Thailand, where rice yields have risen considerably with developed irrigation systems, the widespread adoption of Green Revolution technologies has resulted in stagnating market prices and yields throughout most areas of the country (Pasuk and Baker, 1995), persisting poverty of small-scale farmers in many rain-fed areas (Apichai, 1997), recurrent pest resistance and resurgence to pests (Sathorn, 2000), health hazards related to farmers’ inefficient use of pesticides (Nipon, Ruhs and Sumana, 1998), among others. Furthermore, a rapid expansion of export cash crop cultivation in the uplands of the North and Northeast, promoted by the MOAC during the 1970, with crops such as maize, cassava, kenaf, and cotton, resulted in rapid deforestation and massive displacement of the poor from the paddy tracts as dependent labor on agribusinesses with no secure titles to land (Pasuk and Baker, 1995).
May well be worth chasing down after all, behind its paywall.