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Agrobiodiversity and the food crisis

UNEP has just published The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. 1 I found out about it because its illustrations are separately available on the GRID-Arendal website and I subscribe to its feed. Which is weird, because I’d have thought UNEP would make more of this. Maybe I just missed the announcement of the launch.

Any agricultural biodiversity in it, I hear you ask. Actually, perhaps surprisingly, yes. There’s a box on “Using crop genetic diversity to combat pests and diseases in agriculture” on page 57. There’s a box on “Enhancing sustainability through the use of crop wild relatives” on page 74. And, though admittedly it doesn’t address agrobiodiversity specifically, there’s a section on increasing research investment in agriculture on page 81. I’ll take that.

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Rooting for the tubers

The Root Crops Agrobiodiversity Project in Vanuatu is inventorying varieties in various villages around the archipelago, and coming up with some astonishing results. 2 But, crucially, the work will not stop there. One of the objectives of the project is “to identify new varieties aiming at broadening the existing genetic bases and to propose them to producers and users, taking into account their needs and preferences.” So it’s more than the usual 3Cs — collect-characterize-conserve. There’s also creation, and dissemination, of new diversity, via seed production. That’s not that easy to do with taros and yams, but then, neither is conservation in conventional field and in vitro genebanks. It’s a very sensible idea to get the diversity increasing and moving around, rather than locking it up on research stations.

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Socializing with plants at Kew

Kew is hosting a festival of ethnobotany, highlighting research into plant-people relationships. Featured topics will likely include medicinal plants in Britain, Spain, China and southern Africa; wild foods in Britain and Africa; natural fibres and basketmaking, home gardens in Britain, spice plants in India, and many more. The emphasis is on hands-on, table-top displays with plenty of opportunity to talk to the exhibitors.

It’s on 7 March, and it sounds like fun. If you go, let us know about it. And send us photos.

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The Vegetable Garden

Frank Van Keirsbilck wrote to recommend his web site, The Vegetable Garden, to us. I’m happy to link to it. There’s a ton of information there, in four languages. 3 The site looks funky and hand-rolled, which is charming although slightly cumbersome, and you may well find things of interest.