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Movable feasts

There’s no doubt that climate change poses a huge challenge for in situ conservation of species — including crop wild relatives — in protected areas. I mean, what is one to do, move the park around to follow the species as it tracks the climate? Well, that’s exactly the type of thing that marine biologists are now contemplating for Marine Protected Areas (MPA):

Maybe they’re bigger, … or spaced like stepping stones so species can hopscotch to higher latitudes. Perhaps they’re not tied to a geographic location at all, but follow conditions scientists know are important.

We saw in earlier posts that assisted migration could be another approach. A couple of things are for certain. If protected areas are aimed at individuals species, as opposed to the landscape or ecosystem, we’re going to have to rethink how we define and manage them. And ex situ conservation will be an increasingly important complement to them.

“We set aside parts of the world as if it’s going to be static,” says [Dee] Boersma, at the University of Washington, Seattle. “But the one thing that’s constant is change.”

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Featured: Taro

Robert weighs in on Taro:

Is anyone producing taro from seed in Hawaii? Or is this something that happens unintentionally (through “volunteers”)?
“taro is used to make the starchy food poi AND is revered as an ancestor of the Hawaiian people.”
Ancesterovores! And THAT is legal?

Jeremy comments: Not only legal, but reasonably common, put that way.

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Cowpea farmers profit

A press release from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (we picked it up at Modern Ghana.com) says that improved varieties of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) are giving farmers 55% greater profits. The new varieties produce high quality grains and are resistant to the parasitic weed Striga. That’s great, and I have some questions.

What do we know about the heritage and breeding of the new varieties? Are they going to need replacement themselves, as pests and diseases adapt to them?

At least one was trialled in 1998 in California, and found to be possibly the best choice as a cover crop or green manure there. I wonder whether it was taken up?

Most interesting, to my mind, can we please get the full story? A quick poke around the intertubes reveals that one of these varieties — IT89KD-288 — has been around in the wild, as it were, since at least 1993, the year of “its accidental release to one farmer”. What happened? And what does it’s subsequent spread tell us about informal seed systems, farmer preferences, the role of extension services, etc. etc?

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Amazonian myth-busting

You may remember a piece in SciDev a couple of years back which justly celebrated EMBRAPA’s genebank. There was an brief, intriguing statement towards the end:

This has been done by several indigenous communities — such as the Krahô, Guarani and Indian tribes from the Xingu river basin in Brazil — that approached Embrapa asking for primitive plants seeds that no longer germinate. The species were important not only to their agricultural system but also to their cultural rituals.

I had heard of this “restoration,” of course: a great story, dutifully trotted out when it is necessary to give an example of direct use of genebank materials, one not involving breeders. But it emerged during the meeting I’m attending that the conventional narrative is not quite correct. It turns out that the seeds that were “returned” to the Krahô had actually not been collected from them, but from a neighbouring tribe, in Tocatins. Ok, it is still direct use of ex situ conserved material by indigenous communities, but somehow not as resonant as formerly, at least for me. I hate it when that happens.

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Rare breeds at risk of disease

BBC News says that “regional breeds of sheep face a heightened risk of disease because of their tendency to remain together in one location”. It is summarising a report from The Sheep Trust, which was founded during the epidemic of Foot and Mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001. That’s important.

What the Trust’s report seems to be saying that when there is an outbreak of disease, the regional, heritage, breeds are vulnerable because they are concentrated in a single geographical location. But that does not put them at greater risk of disease. It puts them at greater risk of being culled as part of government’s policy-based response to the disease. If the policy is to slaughter all animals within, say, 5 km of an affected farm, regardless of whether they have the disease or not, then yes, geographical concentration is a threat to the breed. But it isn’t the disease as such that is the threat, it is the policy response. It is even possible that the policy would wipe out flocks that contain genetic resistance.

What’s the answer? Given that regional breeds are interesting precisely because they are adapted to a small region, simply spreading them about might not be much of a solution. Gene-banking? Well, that’s where we came in: The Sheep Trust is an outgrowth of the Heritage Genebank. So what exactly do they want?

“We are strongly recommending that new measures are put in place to protect these important genetic resources now that their vulnerability has been so clearly demonstrated,” says Professor Dianna Bowles OBE, founder and Chair of The Sheep Trust.

No further details are forthcoming. How very frustrating. Maybe all they want is government money for the sheep genebank.