Its incredible to think that the food crops that we eat are the product
of thousands of years of human selection, which started even before we started farming!
By collecting wild plants and spreading the
seeds, humans, like their animal counterparts, started the process of
selection. Choosing the juiciest, biggest fruits and scattering seeds in
swiddens near their settlements, humans selected certain genes, and encouraged
them to proliferate.
In starting to collect seeds and cultivate
wild plants; farming, humans made further selections, based on various factors such as taste, disease resistance, yield.
Farmers shared seeds and traded. With
increased movement of people, seeds and crops were exchanged over longer
distances. Genetic information travelled, and overtime the crops adapted to
their new climates, soils, pests, diseases and consumers tastes.
Simple evolution. All important processes to enable the species
to survive. We have been genetically manipulating plants for thousands of
years!
Speeding
up the process
This process has speeded up over the last
100 years or so. With improved selection processes and plant breeding,
hybridization techniques and most recently genetic modification. All with the
same intention – to adjust plant genetic material to improve certain elements
such as disease resistance, yield, sugar content, stalk length. Whatever the
highest bidder requires.
Modern farming systems favor efficiency
and monocultures. Monocultures enable economies of scale. Predicability, They
enable the whole field to be treated with the same chemicals and produce
standardized products. All very desirable qualities.
But they mean
fields full of genetically identical plants.
At the same time, the seed exchange has
globalized. The number of different varieties available has decreased. Hybridized seeds often contain ‘terminator genes’, therefore seeds cannot be
saved year to year and varieties cannot evolve to local conditions – such as
soil types, climatic conditions or aspect.
Globally we are dependent on an
increasingly narrow spectrum of genetic material. Most of the worlds population
depend on 3 crops; rice, wheat and maize for around 60% of their calorific
intake. With improved varieties the genetic diversity of these crops is
reducing rapidly.
Plant genetic diversity is important for a
number of reasons. We just need to look to nature to see that with diversity
comes greater resilience to shocks such as drought and disease.
But most importantly genetic diversity is
also a resource for future generations, Losing genetic information is like
losing the key to our future solutions. Once lost we can’t get it back.
Losing genetic diversity makes us very
vulnerable.
What
is being done to protect agricultural biodiversity?
Lets take a
case study of Nepal.
Due to its
impressive topography Nepal boasts a huge range of agro-ecological zones, and
consequently varieties, landraces and cultivars of wild and domesticated plants adapted to
local niches. Evolved over generations through their relationship with man.
However,
increasingly farmers are encouraged to use imported seed and there is
considerable evidence that Nepal is rapidly losing its plant genetic resource.
Working with an
agricultural cooperative in the Kaski region earlier this year I was inspired
by farmers that were very conscious of preserving their seeds.
I met Tara Devi
Gurung. Here she is below showing my colleague Tanka a selection of here
carefully saved seeds. They are local varieties of spinach, sponge gourd (a
traditional crop to the Himalaya).
Tara explained how she preferred local
seeds over imported varieties for a number of reasons. Firstly, she had been
stung by hybrid seeds which didn’t grow from her saved seeds. She had to buy
them again!
Secondly the taste. She cooked us marpha, a local variety of spinach with
a big leaf and deliciously sweet flavor. She explained how the area was famous
for it and in the markets of Pokhara the local marpha demanded higher prices
for its supreme flavor (and perhaps a bit of nostalgia for the food from the
village..!)
Thirdly, Tara had found that the imported
seeds (promoted by an NGO ahem!) in
some cases had a higher yield but in others they did not perform as well as
locally bred varieties – presumably as they were not adapted to local
conditions, pests and diseases.
Like many farmers in the Himalaya. Tara
recognized the importance of seed saving and preserving local varieties.
Luckily she has a few friends on her side.
We visited the Lumle
Agricultural Research Centre where we met a friendly scientist working
with farrmers in their fields to develop local improved varieties and hybrids,
combining desirable qualities of imported seed with those of local. One successful
example was the Bhaktapur local, an
improved cultivar of a local cucumber which had a longer growing season and
delivered higher yields than both local and imported varieties. In Taras
village Bhadaure, many farmer are
benefiting from the market advantage of off-season production of Bhaktapur local.
Such ‘Participatory
plant breeding’ enables scientists to engage farmers in the process,
ensuring that varietal selection is based on the qualities that they seek and
that are appropriate to their fields and markets.
Tanka and I also visited LiBird,
a fantastic organization (supported by Bioversity) who work with local
communities on a range of projects to protect biodiversity. Their work includes
community seed banks; where
communities collect, document and store local varieties, farmer to farmer research and a local radio show to raise awareness
of the importance of preserving agricultural diversity and local varieties,
sharing experiences. They also work with farmers to market and add value to
local varieties and traditional crops such as finger millet.
So after thousands of years of cultivating, domesticating and co-evolving with our food plants, we are at a critical point. We are losing our botanic heritage.
When I look at the fields full of genetically identical wheat plants in our fields I wonder were we begin, But these inspiring efforts in the Himalayas bring me hope that we can preserve plant genetic information for future generations, improve food security and resilience and produce tastier, healthier, more lucrative crops!
