Decoding 'orphan crop' genomes could save millions of lives in Africa

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jun/02/genetic-mapping-plan-to-boost-africa-crops


Howard-Yana Shapiro wants to make the genetic makeup of some crops freely available on the internet. Photograph: Gabriela Hasbun/Redux/eyevine

The future wellbeing of millions of Africans may rest in the unlikely hands of a vegan hippy scientist working for a sweet company who plans to map and then give away the genetic data of 100 traditional crops.

Howard-Yana Shapiro, the agriculture director of the $36bn US confectionery corporation Mars, led a partnership that sequenced and then published in 2010 the complete genome of the cacao tree from which chocolate is derived. He plans to work with American and Chinese scientists to sequence and make publicly available the genetic makeup of a host of crops such as yam, finger millet, tef, groundnut, cassava and sweet potato.

Dubbed "orphan crops" because they have been ignored by scientists, seed companies and governments, they are staples for up to 250 million smallholder African farmers who depend on them for food security, nutrition and income. However, they are considered of little economic interest to large seed and chemical companies such as Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta, which concentrate on global crops such as maize, rice and soya.

According to Shapiro, there is huge potential to develop more resilient and higher-yielding varieties of most orphan crops by combining traditional plant breeding methods with new biotech tools such as "genetic marking". This does not involve the altering or insertion of genes that takes place with controversial genetic modification.

[ananda]

1. That's pretty cool.

..

[Buzz Clik]

2. I'm not sure that a certain clan of DUers are going to be happy...

... once they figure out what those gene sequences will be used for.