Storing Plant Seeds, Sequencing Plant Genomes
Two stories this week describe two different approaches to plant genetic resources. Tuesday, researchers from Washington University and Iowa State university announced a completed draft of the corn genome (KSJ Tracker has a roundup). The same day, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which will store seeds from around the world in the event of catastrophic loss, opened on a remote Norwegian island.
The Seed Vault is a major attempt to preserve existing biodiversity. The underground storage facility will freeze seeds from all over the world, shielding them from blight, climate change, seed bank mismanagement, and war. (The bunker was designed to withstand a nuclear explosion.)
Sequencing the maize genome represents another big step forward in agricultural genetics. Funded by the NSF, the USDA, and the DOE, the genome map can facilitate the production of hardier, higher-yield breeds that carry specific traits university or agribusiness researchers are looking for.
Genetically modified food doesn’t carry the same stigma in the United States as it does in the EU, but Alexis Madrigal, writing at earth2tech, raises the point that in the U.S., farm bill subsidies support corn growing, GM or not. And one possible application of this new genetic knowledge is the ability to manipulate corn genes so the plant might produce oil. Agricultural subsidies for oil-bearing corn would only make it harder to move biofuel conversations past the resource-intensive crop and on to the next generation of biofuels.
And questions about access to genetic resources necessarily raise the issue of intellectual property. Andrew Revkin points to some of the problems raised with the Svalbard approach–and centralized seed banking in general–including the fact that it takes genetic resources out of the hand of farmers, “the world’s original, and ongoing, plant breeders,” in the words of Grain.org. (For more on that, see the New Yorker‘s extensive back story on the vault from last summer.) With respect to the corn genome, the latest work could prompt discussion of gene patenting in industrial agriculture; as the AP points out, agribusiness giant Monsanto helped with the sequencing and will be able to license the fruits of the research for its products.
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