Landrace Preservation

Landraces of Andean maize
credit: Karl Zimmerer, Penn State

Science Daily is reporting that what is left of the world's crop diversity is being held by small farmers--that is, farmers who hold between three and seven acres (1-3 hectares) of land.
To quote from the Penn State news release:

What the census shows is that small farmers, in many cases women, are the ones preserving landraces of food crops. A landrace is a locally adapted, traditional variety of a domesticated species. Depending on the crop, farmers may plant anywhere from one to 15 different landraces. While the livelihoods of small land users are often precarious, these landraces provide vital farm and food resources. 

 Small farmers tend to plant different landraces in the same field, encouraging hybridization. Maize, for example, hybridizes quite easily, while potatoes do not. This means a farmer may plant 3 or 4 landraces of maize, but up to 30 or more landraces of potatoes.
But the landraces are not just preserved by farmers in remote rural areas. Frequently they are found also in peri-urban areas--where people live near, and depend upon urban areas--where people are growing local food for local consumption.
The press release alone makes for fascinating reading, and leaves us with some hope for the diversity of foods.

Friday Means...Link-straveganza!

There's bad news coming, and it's called the TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership. It's another of these Free Trade corporate rights deals being made behind our backs. In Canada, there's a total of three people allowed to see the full text of the deal and they are not allowed to tell Canadians what's in the damned thing until after it has been signed. The TPP would include Japan, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand, Brunei, and possibly China. Over at Grist, Heather Smith takes on the recent leak of the draft text and points out just how bad for the planet this deal is going to be.

via University of Colorado

 In somewhat related news, there's been a drought of MSM (main stream media) coverage of global climate change. Grist is once again on the story:

The University of Colorado’s Center for Science & Technology Research monitors mentions of “global warming” and “climate change” in five major U.S. newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. Check out the [...] sad graph [above] showing its latest findings

Cacao tree via Luisovalles at Wikipedia

Science Daily is reporting on the use of genetic testing to identify various cultivars of cacao beans;

 The ability to authenticate premium and rare varieties would encourage growers to maintain cacao biodiversity rather than depend on the most abundant and easiest to grow trees. Researchers have found ways to verify through genetic testing the authenticity of many other crops, including cereals, fruits, olives, tea and coffee, but those methods aren't suitable for cacao beans. Zhang's team wanted to address this challenge.
Applying the most recent developments in cacao genomics, they were able to identify a small set of DNA markers called SNPs (pronounced "snips") that make up unique fingerprints of different cacao species. The technique works on single cacao beans and can be scaled up to handle large samples quickly. "To our knowledge, this is the first authentication study in cacao using molecular markers," the researchers state.

Science Daily is also reporting two linked stories. First, that the effects of livestock on climate change are underestimated:

 While climate change negotiators struggle to agree on ways to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, they have paid inadequate attention to other greenhouse gases associated with livestock, according to an analysis by an international research team.
A reduction in non-CO₂ greenhouse gases will be required to abate climate change, the researchers said. Cutting releases of methane and nitrous oxide, two gases that pound-for-pound trap more heat than does CO₂, should be considered alongside the challenge of reducing fossil fuel use.
The researchers’ analysis, “Ruminants, Climate Change, and Climate Policy,” is being published today as an opinion commentary in Nature Climate Change, a professional journal.

And second, that there may be a chance of lowering the emission of greenhouse gases from cattle:

A new research project looks into the possibilities of adapting every aspect of cattle husbandry and selection processes to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.

The key to the project, Garnsworthy says, is that cattle vary by a factor of two or three in the amount of methane their stomachs produce. It is therefore possible to imagine a dairy herd producing the same volume of milk for lower greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, different diets mean that cows can produce the same amount of milk with lower emissions. "It is possible to imagine cutting emissions from cattle by a fifth, using a combination approach in which you would breed from lower-emitting cattle as well as changing their diets," Garnsworthy said.

Katy Salter, writing for The Guardian, points out the rise in expensive slices of toast as the Next Big Thing:

Toast is trendy. Yes, you read that right: toast. Obviously we're not talking marge on Mighty White, but rather the artisanal slices served with hand-churned butter and homemade jams that have been popping up on "toast menus" around San Francisco and now New York. And if that all sounds too yuppy and insufferable for words, brace yourself: there's more. Some of those slices are selling for $4 a pop. That's about £2.43 a slice at the current exchange rate.

Friday Food Link-straveganza

via Wikipedia

Science Daily is reporting on a new, better quality climate model that should help with crop predictions in a changing climate:

In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change, members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system that integrates multiple crop simulations with improved climate change models. AgMIP's effort has produced new knowledge that better predicts global wheat yields while reducing political and socio-economic influences that can skew data and planning efforts, said Bruno Basso, Michigan State University ecosystem scientist and AgMIP member.
"Quantifying uncertainties is an important step to build confidence in future yield forecasts produced by crop models," said Basso, with MSU's geological sciences department and Kellogg Biological Station. "By using an ensemble of crop and climate models, we can understand how increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, along with temperature increases and precipitation changes, will affect wheat yield globally."
The improved crop models can help guide the world's developed and developing countries as they adapt to changing climate and create policies to improve food security and feed more people, he added.

via Wikipedia

 The Mail has published an (adapted) excerpt of Michael Pollen's new book Cooked:

For more than a century we have been engaged in a war on bacteria. We deploy an arsenal of antibiotics, hand sanitisers, pasteurisation and food regulations to tackle the moulds and bacteria and so, we hope, hold off disease and death.I grew up on that field of battle. My mother instilled in our family a deep fear of botulism, and countless other unnamed germs possibly lurking in our food.
A touch of white on a wedge of cheese was enough to condemn it.
The slightest dent in a can of food consigned it to the rubbish, no matter that the dent came from being dropped on the floor. You never know, could be botulism; better safe than sorry.
In the decades since Louis Pasteur discovered bacteria, medical research has focused mainly on their role in causing disease.
The bacteria that reside in and on our bodies were generally regarded as either harmless freeloaders, or pathogens to be defended against.
But then in the early 2000s, researchers discovered hundreds of new species of bacteria in the human gut doing all sorts of unexpected things.
To their surprise, microbiologists discovered that we are made up of 90 per cent bacteria. Nine out of every ten cells in our bodies are not human but belong to these microbial species (most of them residents of our gut).
As one scientist put it to me, we 'stand on the verge of a paradigm shift in our understanding of health as well as our relationship to other species'.

via Wikipedia

The Portland Press Herald is reporting on Maine's passage of a GMO labelling bill. With enough state's passing bills like this, it won't be necessary to pass federal legislation:

Maine is on track to join several other states attempting to require food producers to label food containing genetically modified ingredients, following a landslide vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The 141-4 vote on L.D. 718, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lance Harvell, R-Farmington, sets the stage for a legal entanglement between the state and agribusiness and biotech industry giant Monsanto, which has already threatened to sue states that pass similar labeling laws. The political battle between industry interests and the well-organized supporters of L.D. 718 has raged behind the scenes for several months at the State House, as the biotech industry fights to blunt a popular movement that has taken the GMO fight to at least 18 other state legislatures following failed attempts to pass labeling legislation in Congress.

via Wikipedia

 With the rise of the urban chicken, this article from Chickens on Camera is particularly apt:

ERROR #2: Not Giving Your Chickens Proper Ventilation.
Building a chicken coop is to protect your flock. The purpose of your coop is to protect your chickens from the element and outside predators, but you also need to give them proper ventilation. Free movement of air inside the coop is very important, but you do not want to freeze your chickens with a draft. Chickens, are like humans, they can only perform at their optimum levels if all of their basic needs are met first, in this case protection and oxygen. A Chicken coop without free air movement and therefore more oxygen will have high carbon monoxide levels and humidity levels. This is not good because uncomfortable chickens do not produce as many eggs. It is also very dangerous because it makes mold growth within the walls very easy.

And the BC Food Security Gateway has a link to the University of British Columbia Sustainable Campus Food Guide.  It's so great to see all the work being done in my home province on changing the food system.  And BCSFG is a significant part of that.

And now I'm off to cook lunch  for a hundred or so of my fellow citizens at the Victoria Rainbow Kitchen. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Friday Food Security Link-straveganza

The United States Department of Agriculture is likely to approve a horse slaughtering plant in New Mexico in the next two months, which would allow equine meat suitable for human consumption to be produced in the United States for the first time since 2007.

So says the article in the New York Times.

The plant, in Roswell, N.M., is owned by Valley Meat Company, which sued the U.S.D.A. and its Food Safety and Inspection Service last fall over the lack of inspection services for horses going to slaughter. Horse meat cannot be processed for human consumption in the United States without inspection by the U.S.D.A., so horses destined for that purpose have been shipped to places like Mexico and Canada for slaughter.

This makes sense. If you're going to eat something, you'd really like to know that it is what it claims to be, that it has been inspected and passed as safe from contaminants and disease, and that it has been handled in a safe manner. All of the things that the European horse/beef problems are based around.

A massive international study involving the University of Calgary warns the continued loss of wild bees is hurting agriculture and food production across the globe, including fruit and seed crop harvests here in Alberta.
Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees.
And as agricultural development, pesticides and viruses continue to diminish wild insect populations, crop harvest size and quality will continue to dwindle.
- See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

 A massive international study involving the University of Calgary warn the continued loss of wild bees is hurting agriculture and food production across the globe, including fruit and seed crop harvests here in Alberta.

Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees. - See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees. - See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

massive international study involving the University of Calgary warns the continued loss of wild bees is hurting agriculture and food production across the globe, including fruit and seed crop harvests here in Alberta.
Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees.
And as agricultural development, pesticides and viruses continue to diminish wild insect populations, crop harvest size and quality will continue to dwindle.
- See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

A massive international study involving the University of Calgary warns the continued loss of wild bees is hurting agriculture and food production across the globe, including fruit and seed crop harvests here in Alberta.
Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees.
And as agricultural development, pesticides and viruses continue to diminish wild insect populations, crop harvest size and quality will continue to dwindle.
- See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

A massive international study involving the University of Calgary warns the continued loss of wild bees is hurting agriculture and food production across the globe, including fruit and seed crop harvests here in Alberta.
Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees.
And as agricultural development, pesticides and viruses continue to diminish wild insect populations, crop harvest size and quality will continue to dwindle.
- See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

A massive international study involving the University of Calgary warns the continued loss of wild bees is hurting agriculture and food production across the globe, including fruit and seed crop harvests here in Alberta.
Researchers have collected and examined data from 600 fields in 20 different countries, including Canada, and found that managed honey bees are not as successful at pollinating crops as wild insects, primarily wild bees.
And as agricultural development, pesticides and viruses continue to diminish wild insect populations, crop harvest size and quality will continue to dwindle.
- See more at: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/calgary/Declining+populations+pose+threat+food+crops+Alberta+around/8031808/story.html#sthash.MnwvkIdZ.dpuf

So says the Calgary Herald. But then, the news about bees has been terrible for so long, it's a wonder we haven't made the shift to soylent green yet....  I mean, just because we're destroying the bee populations is no reason to re-think our approach to industrial agriculture, is it?
The same topic in the Guardian yields the info that:

Scientists studied the pollination of more than 40 crops in 600 fields across every populated continent and found wild pollinators were twice as effective as honeybees in producing seeds and fruit on crops including oilseed rape, coffee, onions, almonds, tomatoes and strawberries. Furthermore, trucking in managed honeybee hives did not replace wild pollination when that was lost, but only added to the pollination that took place.
"It was astonishing; the result was so consistent and clear," said Lucas Garibaldi, at the National University in Río Negro, Argentina, who led the 46-strong scientific team. "We know wild insects are declining so we need to start focusing on them. Without such changes, the ongoing loss is destined to compromise agricultural yields worldwide."

The study was published in the journal Science. (paywall)

Cotton For My Shroud is a new documentary about the massive number of farmer suicides in India over the last few years. Baltimore is hosting a screening of the film tomorrow, so you may want to keep an eye out for it. The event description:

The documentary reveals the effect of Genetical Modified (GM) crops in India and how it has changed the landscape of Agriculture in India. The documentary highlights 5 years of footage in crisis hit Vidarbha region of India. User discretion is advised because of graphic contents.

Cotton For My Shroud received 2012 National Film Awards of India for best documentary script. National Film Awards honors exceptional movies and documentaries in India, most of them not affiliated with Bollywood film industry.The 2011 census of India confirmed the figure of more than 200,000 farmer suicides in India related to faulty policies of the administration and other social issues.

Association for India's Development (AID) along with it's partner have been working over a decade on sustainable agriculture. AID is also part of the alliance ASHA, Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture. AID participated in anti Bt Brinjal campaign, a move by GM companies to push GM Brinjal into India.

Since 70% of India's population is directly related to agriculture, distress in this area has given rise to many other problems across India including slums, poverty, sex trafficking, etc.

This documentary is presented by Association for India's Development and Real Food Hopkins.

There's a character out in Iowa trying to breed a new perfect pig, according to the New York Times. Not an Enviro-pig, which was bred at Guelph, but a cross of two heritage breeds:

Carl Edgar Blake II has tried to breed the perfect pig. Fatty and smooth. Meaty and flavorful.

He crossed a Chinese swine, the Meishan, with the Russian wild boar — emulating a 19th-century German formula created when King Wilhelm I imported the fatty Meishan to breed with leaner native wild pigs in what is now the state of Baden-Württemberg. They called that one the Swabian Hall. With dark and juicy meat, it assumed a place among Europe’s finest swine.

Mr. Blake, 49, has bet that his 21st-century American version — the Iowa Swabian Hall — can be equally delectable.

The early reviews have been promising. Two years after his operation began, his pig won a heritage pork culinary contest in 2010, Cochon 555 in San Francisco.

From Science Daily:

Want to know what you are eating? DNA barcodes can be used to identify even very closely related species, finds an article published in BioMed Central's open access journal Investigative Genetics. Results from the study show that the labelling of game meat in South Africa is very poor with different species being substituted almost 80% of the time.

The idea of having to take my portable DNA scanner to the grocery store to make sure I'm getting what I pay for doesn't really thrill me.... Especially since we have systems in place that are supposed to do that already.

via The Guardian

 And finally:

A recently discovered livestock disease that can cause foetal abnormalities and stillbirth in sheep and cattle has spread to almost all of Britain, with more than 1,500 cases detected, according to government figures.
Data from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency, part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), showed Schmallenberg virus had been confirmed in livestock in all counties of England and Wales, as well as to a more limited extent in Scotland.
The virus was detected in the Netherlands and Germany in late 2011 and named after the town in North Rhine-Westphalia where it first emerged. Spread by midge bites, it tends to cause abnormalities to skulls and limbs, and can affect goats. In adult animals it causes fever, loss of appetite and reduced milk production. It was first detected in lambs in eastern England at the start of 2012.
A possible vaccine has been developed and tried out elsewhere in Europe with apparent success. Defra's Veterinary Medicines Directorate has confirmed it is considering an application for use of the Bovilis SBV vaccine, with the process near completion.

Story once again from The Guardian.

Reducing e. coli Contamination

There's a report at Science Daily that talks about research by a "Cand.agric. Sigrun J. Hauge defended her doctoral research on 2nd May 2012 at The Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NVH) with a thesis entitled "Hygienic impact of measures related to unclean cattle and sheep at farm level and in the abattoir."" The article goes on to detail Sigrun's testing of  a "hot water pasteurization" process for destroying e. coli  on lamb carcases. It is an interesting read (a copy follows), but its predicated on treating animals as industrial inputs. Stop doing that and meeat will become more expensive, better, and better for us.

ScienceDaily (May 4, 2012) — Following the E. coli case in Norway in 2006, when 17 people fell ill and one child died after eating mutton sausages, the meat industry introduced a number of measures in order to reduce the risk of food poisoning from meat. Clean animals and good hygiene during slaughtering are essential preconditions for food safety.

Sigrun J. Hauge has studied the effect of the measures implemented on farms and in slaughterhouses. The aim of the project "Uncontaminated Carcasses" was to uncover data that would help to improve the hygienic quality of meat from cattle and sheep by means of cleaner animals and efficient ways of slaughtering high-risk animals.
E. coli is a commonly occurring bacterium in the digestive tract of humans, animals and birds. Just a few strains are pathogenic and can cause diarrhea and kidney failure, particularly in children. The bacteria die at temperatures over 60-70 °C and are therefore normally eliminated by boiling and roasting. Hauge has shown that a new, rapid enzymatic method for detecting E. coli is equally as reliable as the traditional method of growing bacteria culture. This new method is therefore suitable for monitoring E. coli in abattoirs.