Bioscience Resource Project News and Views

Published on Wednesday 2nd March by Independent Science News: Many European Pesticide Approvals Are “unlawful” Says EU Ombudsman was written by Jonathan Latham, PhD.

Synopsis: Currently, 88 pesticides are approved in Europe having incomplete data sets on health and safety. Under a procedure called the Confirmatory Data Procedure (CDP) pesticides can legally be approved even where applications are incomplete. However, many of these ‘temporary’ registrations occurred over ten years ago and still have not been finalized. Therefore, according to a complaint brought by Pesticides Action Network of Europe the EU is using the much weaker CDP registration process as a loophole and not in the manner intended. This is leading to high risks to health and the environment. The complaint was upheld on this and other points by the EU Ombudsman who ruled that using the CDP as a default was illegal on narrow grounds but also because it appeared to violate the precautionary principle which is the legal standard in the EU.

Like the EU, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also been  approving pesticides under less stringent conditional registration standards and then failing to enforce full registration. US EPA has been heavily criticised for this, including in a 2013 NRDC report: Superficial Safeguards: Most Pesticides Are Approved by Flawed EPA Process.

To read the full article go to: http://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/many-european-pesticide-approvals-are-unlawful-says-eu-ombudsman/

The Centrality of Seed: Building Agricultural Resilience Through Plant Breeding by Salvatore Ceccarelli, PhD has just been published on Independent Science News.

Synopsis: Once the exclusive domain of farmers, plant breeding is now nearly always practiced without any meaningful farmer input. The downsides associated with this transition have hardly been explored. They include losses of genetic diversity, local adaptability, plant robustness, flavor, nutritional quality, and many other important crop traits. In particular, commercial seed breeding focuses on the specific needs of chemical agriculture. Commodity crops are thus bred for close spacing and short stature so farmers have to buy more seeds per acre and herbicides to suppress the weeds. GMOs (genetically modified organisms) have extended this trend and are even bred to sell specific herbicides. By abandoning seed saving and animal breeding, farmers have thus surrendered control over the long-term direction of agriculture. Its future is now almost exclusively in the hands of the chemical industry while breeding for organic agriculture is almost nonexistent.

But can breeding be returned to farmer control without sacrificing short-term benefits? Salvatore Ceccarelli is a leading international scientist and proponent of farmer-led participatory and evolutionary plant breeding methods based on solid scientific grounds. He works with diverse crops and here describes how even common commercial varieties can be used as the gene pools from which to successfully create evolutionary populations from which farmers can select high-quality locally-adapted varieties.

The complete article is available at: http://www.independentsciencenews.org/un-sustainable-farming/the-centrality-of-seed-building-agricultural-resilience-through-plant-breeding/

Salvatore Ceccarelli lives in Hyderabad (India) and cooperates in organizing participatory and evolutionary programs with different organizations, with various crops and in a number of countries. He is associated with the organization: Rete Semi Rurali, Via di Casignano, 25, Scandicci (FI) 50018, Italy (http://www.semirurali.net/). His website is: http://www.miscugli.it/ and it links to the full text of many useful scientific papers under the Publications tab. Many of Salvatore Ceccarelli’s papers can be accessed by joining: https://www.researchgate.net/. Some academic articles can be accessed if you create a free JSTOR account: http://support.jstor.org/independent-researcher/

Further Reading on Participatory and Evolutionary Plant Breeding

Döring, Thomas F., et al. “Evolutionary plant breeding in cereals—into a new era.” Sustainability 3.10 (2011): 1944-1971.

Free Participatory Plant Breeding Toolkit from the Organic Seed Alliance.

Participatory Plant breeding programs for broccoli and organic spelt, quinoa and buckwheat. Organic Farming Research Foundation.

Phillips, S. L., & Wolfe, M. S. (2005). Evolutionary plant breeding for low input systems. The Journal of Agricultural Science, 143(04), 245-254.

Produce Your Own Seeds: A biology handbook for farmers (worldwide ebook)
by Salvatore Ceccarelli.

WIRFP Participatory Plant Breeding: Concepts and Examples This Paper presents the results of a participatory maize breeding collaboration between Indian farmers and agricultural universities.

Plant Genetic Resources

Open Source Seed Initiative OSSI was created by a group of plant breeders, farmers, seed companies, and sustainability advocates who want seeds that are free of patents.

Seed Savers Exchange conserves and promotes America’s culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

USDA National Plant Germplasm System. The U.S. National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) is collaborative effort to safeguard the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants.

Published today on Independent Science News: Climate Technofix: Weaving Carbon into Gold and Other Myths of “negative emissions” by Rachel Smolker, Co-Director of Biofuelwatch.

Synopsis: IPCC models for achieving even potentially safe levels of climate change (i.e. 430-480ppm CO2 and 2ºC of warming) are not as plausible as is widely assumed. Buried in the small print of those models is an expectation that viable carbon capture technologies will create “negative emissions”. Yet no such technology currently exists. The only one mentioned by the IPCC as “near term available” is Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (BECCS). Smolker’s excellent article describes the short, costly and painful history of BECCS (and carbon capture as a whole) and why the 2ºC roadmap needs a new route if it is to avert disastrous climate change.

To read Rachel Smolker’s important article go to: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/environment/climate-technofix-weaving-carbon-into-gold-and-other-myths-of-negative-emissions/.

Published today (Mon Nov 29, 2015) on Independent Science News: Students Protest the University of California’s War on Agroecology

Synopsis: The decision of the University of California Berkeley to sell Gill
Tract Farm is part of a systematic repression of agroecology being practiced
by the University of California, say students in an open letter. The University
of California, says the letter, must reject privatization and corporate
control and embrace sustainability, urban agriculture, and racial justice.

To read the full open letter from UC Berkeley Students go to: http://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/students-protest-the-university-of-californias-war-on-agroecology/

Independent Science News just published “Why the United States Leaves Deadly Chemicals on the Market,” an investigative report by Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman.

Synopsis: Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman’s investigation reveals that a computer-based modeling system for estimating human health effects from synthetic chemicals has been known for years to greatly underestimate risks if used in certain ways. This system, called “physiologically based pharmacokinetic” (PBPK) modeling was originally developed by the US Department of Defense. PBPK’s use has been pushed by the chemical industry. It has been effectively used read more…