Biodiversity day

It is the International Day for Biological Diversity and Ireland has launched a National Biodiversity Mapping System which has been developed by the National Biodiversity Data Centre as a tool for the geographic presentation of observational data on Ireland's biological data. The database currently contains over 400,000 records of 3,721 species.

Orchard erosion

Sixty percent of England's traditional orchards have disappeared since the 1950s according to the National Trust with many rare varieties of fruit - some unique to localities - under threat. I am sure it is much the same story in Ireland. All the more reason for initiatives like the 400 Fruit Trees Project. For more on apple diversity and apples in Ireland read here.

Few days later....more on the vanishing orchards from the Guardian, along with some interesting links.

Welcome to Local Food Advisor

A new food website dedicated to championing local food and rare breeds was recently launched and lists the top 4000 award winning regional producers and suppliers in the UK and Ireland.

An apple a day to keep the climate at bay?

A few weeks back I posted on the 400 Fruit Trees project in Kilkenny. Well, I am now delighted to see that they have documented the launch of the project and edited it into a great wee video which you can watch here. The video provides some background on the Transition Town movement as well as the Fruit Trees project itself. Happy to see that they are working with the Irish Seed Savers Association to reintroduce native Irish apple varieties. Something simple that could be easily tried elsewhere with a bit of planning and enthusiasm and the right partners.

Supporting native breeds

During the first seven decades of the 1900s, 26 native breeds of livestock became extinct in Britain, not to mention the many varieties of poultry. Breeds such as Goonhilly ponies and Rhiw sheep will never be seen again grazing their native pastures. Since the formation of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust in 1973 no native breeds have been lost! There is no government support to the RBST and most activities are funded through members, legacies and donations. To secure the continued existence and viability of the UK's native farm animal genetic resources the Trust launched the Rare Breeds National ReGENEration Appeal and are half way to their target of 2.5 million pounds. Their aim is to collect semen from 25 males from each of the domestic farm species currently listed by the RBST, to represent the widest genetic diversity available in the current population. Of the semen collected 55% goes into a permanent national archive stored by the Trust, 30% is stored for use in conservation breeding programmes and 15% is available to livestock owners and stored, free of charge, by the Trust.

Bioversity indicators to go

An updated overview of the 18 biodiversity indicators for the UK, including up north, was published this month. The indicators include the population status of: key species; plant diversity; the status of priority species, habitats and ecosystems; genetic diversity of rare breeds of sheep and cattle; protected sites; management of woodland agricultural land and fisheries; impacts of air pollution and invasive species; expenditure on biodiversity; and the amount of time given by volunteers to nature conservation activities. While there is an assessment of the level of genetic diversity of native livestock breeds, there is no similar measure for native landraces. Seeing the status of native livestock breeds reminded me to post on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Watchlist which i came across in my current copy of The Ark, and which includes our very own vulnerable Irish Moiled.

Can't seem to find an equivalent list for down south.

Future proofing a town near you

Future Proof Kilkenny has an interesting site and is part of the Transition Town movement, a growing network of cities, towns and villages around the world who are facing up to the challenges of peak oil and climate change and responding with creative community led initiatives. I have only skimmed but there is much of interest. Especially interesting is Kilkenny’s 400 Fruit Tree project which will mark the 400th Anniversary of the Signing of the City Charter by planting 400 native and heritage varieties of Apple, Pear, Plum and Cherry throughout the city and environs during 2009. Just wish they were more explicit about diversifying the food base among their aims but thankful that agrobiodiversity is rightly recognised as part of the strategy in tackling climate change. Great idea though, need more like it, making sure agrobiodiversity is mainstreamed in community initiatives to climate change, both in the global north and south!

The Irish Moiled

The Irish Moiled is a breed of cattle that comes from Nortnern Ireland and in the 1980s the population had fallen dramatically to about 20 cows. Thankfully the breed has been revived through the efforts of the the Irish Moiled Cattle Society formed in 1926 to develop and improve the breed. In 1982 the Society itself was revived with the encouragement of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Since then the breed has enjoyed valuable research and guidance from both the Trust and the Genetics Department of Liverpool University and the Society now has a well established DNA testing programme to ensure validity of pedigrees and the integrity of this important gene pool. In 2008 a breed conservation strategy was launched and it is hoped that this strategy will help maintain the genetic base of the breed.

Save the Lonk

A campaign, highlighted in the weekend Times has begun an attempt to bring rare heritage breeds of sheep to a restaurant near you. Farming chiefs have started talks with leading supermarkets to widen the market for native sheep such the Rough Fell, the Herdwick, the Romney, the Exmoor Horn and of course the Lonk. Most of these heritage breeds are geographically isolated and highly vulnerable. A recent 'special edition' of the New Agriculturalist focuses on the benefits and challenges involved in the sustainable use of livestock genetic diversity.

Later...I don't think I emphasise above enough that the efforts to encourage utilisation of these rare breeds through food production systems and marketing is part of a longer, more sustainable strategy for their conservation.

To bee or not to bee

Native British bees are dying out — and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe according to this article. So why is nothing being done?

The burden of proof

Attended a seminar yesterday by Professor Tim Johns, Professor in Human Nutrition at McGill University and former Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment at McGill. Tim is currently spending a sabbatical period at Bioversity to further develop the Biodiversity and Nutrition initiative and also represents Bioversity on the CGIAR’s Agriculture and Health Research Platform. Tim discussed the evolving Biodiversity and Nutrition strategy in light of work on neglected and underutilized species/leafy vegetables, dietary diversity, public health benefits, market chains, food systems and ecohealth and the unique space that agrobiodiversity occupies between agriculture, health and nutrition and environment. This clearly presents many opportunities which need to be actively pursued, such as the role of agrobiodiversity and HIV/Aids.

The main take home message was the lack of a solid evidence-base for the role of agrobiodiversity in health and nutrition. As Tim highlighted ‘ the case is just not there’ and it needs to be if those of us who work with agrobiodiversity are to change the attitudes of donors and relevant organisations. What is the role of agrobiodiversity in child malnutrition, diabetes, eye health? According to Tim we just don’t really know. There was much talk about building a solid and cohesive body of proof involving convincing cases for the role of agrobiodiversity in nutrition and health. Yes, certainly. But I couldn't help but think that the challenge is even greater than this and one could stress the need to argue the case, or construct a convincing body of proof, for the role of agrobiodiversity in sustainable livelihoods, ecosystem services, agricultural production and stability and resilience of agroecosystems. Data and information certainly exists but wouldn’t it be nice to have it packaged in one form or another that really makes a convincing case so the agrobiodiversity community can counteract the pessimists who argue that such links are tenuous.

By the way, I couldn't help but notice that COHAB was absent from the list of partners, current and potential, in the presentation. I am sure they are in there somewhere, given that Bioversity is a partner in that initiative. Interestingly COHAB currently have a 'request for information' to build a body of evidence for the relationship between biodiversty change and the incidence of certain non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

News from the Vault

further information on Ireland's contribution to Svalbard.

They're in the post!

According to Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Irelands contribution of seeds to the Svalbard vault is expected to arrive before April this year. Anyone know what crops, varieties? How much and from whom?

A letter from Belfast

This interesting paper was just sent to me by a friend. We have just left the year of the potato and this year we enter the anniversaries of Darwin's birth and the publication of "Origin of Species'. The paper, by M. Dearce at TCD, re-visits the correspondence between Darwin and James Torbitt, a Belfast wine merchant, regarding the latter's plans for breeding blight resistant potaoes around the 1880s.

The crisis with no name

Interesting article from the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) about the difficulties of drawing attention to future food crises which have might have poor crop diversity as their cause. But is the Irish famine history´s biggest food crisis?

The Chicha Boys

It comes close to a pint of the black stuff on a Saturday afternoon down the pub, with the lads and a live game on telly. I've just spent the afternoon in Cochabamba sampling a variety of chicha with a cosmopolitan group. All were made from maize and blended with wine but I have been told that I can get chicha made from amaranth and quinoa around town also. Chicha crawl here I come!

Coming home to roost

A newly published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found that years of intensive inbreeding in commercial chickens has resulted in 50% or more of the genetic diversity in ancestral chicken breeds being absent in commercial pure lines. Alarming!

Wine, Mirzayev and Shreder

Shortly after reading Gary Nabhan's new book, Where our Food Comes From, I had the good fortune to visit Uzbekistan and learn a little bit more about the time that Vavilov spent there, including his laying of the foundation stone for the original building and institute that are now part of the Uzbekistan Research Institute of Plant Industry (UzRIPI), which currently houses the Central Asian Caucus (CAC) genebank home to over 23,000 accessions of which about 50% are cereals (and about 5% of the total are crop wild relatives). To the present day over 200 cultivars have been developed on the basis of materials held in this collection, including contributions from crop wild relatives. But it was the opportunity to learn about other lesser-known pioneers of agrobiodiversity such as R.R. Shreder and M.M. Mirzayev that was of greatest interest. From 1903 to 1944, R.R. Shreder was the first director of the Uzbekistan Research Institute of Horticulture, Viticulture and Wine Making. An institute which spawned many of the present day agricultural-related institutes in Uzbekistan. Having been sent in 1911 as a delegate to the 6th International Congress on Dryland Farming in the U.S. he returned with considerable germplasm to test under Uzbek conditions. M.M. Mirzayev continued on much of the work of Shreder when he took over as director. It was an absolute pleasure to be able to spend an afternoon in the company of Dr Mirmaksud Mirzayev (the now director and son of M.M.) and his staff and enjoy an extended lunch while washed down with some excellent muscat wines produced and bottled at the institute. If anything it was a welcome respite from the vodka and cognac! The institute also has an excellent museum that is well worth a visit. During the most recent winter Tashkent experienced temperatures as low as -20oC and such temperatures are impacting severely on many of the grape varieties. Pictured is a massively overgrown wild grape vine located just outside the door of the museum. No one seems to know where it came from but they do know that it thrives in such low temperatures. They just need to work out how to transfer such a trait to its cultivated relatives!

One banana, two banana, three banana, four...

I think I have missed World Food Day but I wanted to highlight these great banana stamps that have been together with some old friends and colleagues from the Federated States of Micronesia. Certainly something that you won't see too often in an Irish greengrocers. Click here.

Where our Food Comes From

I have just finished reading Gary Nabhan's new book, Where our Food Comes From and what a delightful journey it was too! After all it is a book about a journey where Nabhan travels in the footsteps of Nikolay Vavilov but as a literary journey it is a joy from the opening foreword by Ken Wilson to the sober closing epilogue. It is full of great stories about Vavilov and the many scientists and farmers he met on his many travels. Great stories about how farmers are using crop diversity for selection and adaptation to changing climate and the not so great about how he met his sad end. Well worth reading. More details here.