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Rethinking paper on Thai government rethinking of sustainable agriculture

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.

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Canada’s Green Party leads the world?

An email from Douglas Woodward of the Green Party in Canada draws our attention to a resolution on Genetic Conservation and Biodiversity, adopted at the Green Party’s convention in February 2009. The preamble to the resolution makes clear the importance of conservation for agriculture:

WHEREAS the conservation of habitat, species and genetically diverse local populations is required not only for the preservation of wild nature but for the survival of agriculture, the possiblity of the domestication of new crops, and the preservation of our food supply,

It then goes on to call for comprehensive collections of crop plant and domestic animal diversity, “especially for low-input systems of farming suited to a resource-frugal future”. This is now part of the Green Party’s policy for Canada.

Does any other political party offer anything similar?

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Featured: Whole system genomics

Susan MacMillan tells us more about the new direction of genomics science at ILRI.

A few years ago, with the tremendous advances in gene technologies, a new kind of geneticist began to appear at ILRI, one that more resembles Hans Solo than Indiana Jones. These researchers are taking ‘whole systems’ approaches to the ‘livestock genetics’ field (a branch of knowledge that, like those temples Indiana Jones obsesses about, can appear of largely historical interest). These new geneticists are ambitiously adding environmental genetics (soil microbes, wildlife species…) to their livestock, parasite and human targets of interest. They’re interested in the WHOLE picture—and they claim they have the tools to productively investigate this brave new world of ‘landscape genomics’.

Much more where that came from…

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Towards the establishment of genetic reserves for crop wild relatives and landraces in Europe

The ECPGR In situ and On-farm Conservation Network Coordinating Group and others are organizing a symposium entitled “Towards the establishment of genetic reserves for crop wild relatives and landraces in Europe” at the University of Madeira, Funchal (Portugal), from 13-16 September 2010.

Conservation biologists, protected area managers and experts from the agrobiodiversity sector engaged in the management and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are welcome to attend the symposium.

Interested? You can find out more on the website of the Centre for Macaronesian Studies of the University of Madeira, one of the co-organizers.

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International collections can’t do it by themselves

Two international centres tout their germplasm collections today. AVRDC’s newsletter, which I just got by email but can’t find on their website, gives a bit of a history lesson:

When AVRDC was founded in 1971, the Center started off with a modest collection of 570 accessions. By 1995, the genebank had grown to 43,205 accessions, comprising 63 genera and 209 species. To date, the Center has accumulated 57,230 accessions comprising 168 genera, 420 species from 154 countries of origin, a growth of 32.5% in number of accessions, 166.7% in number of genera, and 101% in number of species. AVRDC’s vegetable germplasm collections, held as an international public good for the world community, are growing in genetic diversity.

A further snippet of information shows yet again how interconnected the world is for genetic resources. Although “AVRDC is the largest holder of tomato germplasm,” it only includes “9% of the 83,680 accessions held worldwide.”

The same point is made, not quite so directly, but in a more visually striking way, in a map just out in Rice Today (click to enlarge):

And that, dear reader, is why we need a global system, and not just ever more genebanks.