Food for Thought: Can landscape architecture slow the genetic erosion of food crops?

published in Georgia Landscape Magazine (2006) Athens, GA: College of Environment and Design, University of Georgia

Food for Thought: Can Landscape Architecture Slow the Genetic Erosion of Food Crops?

The notion of preserving genetic diversity often conjures images of rainforests, exotic amphibians, and medicinally beneficial plants. The genetic erosion of our food crops, however, is an often overlooked and surprisingly necessary facet of environmental protection.

The food we eat on a daily basis was cultivated from wild plant varieties beginning with the advent of agriculture eight to ten thousand years ago. Plants were first selected inadvertently; as hunter-gatherers moved from place to place, they left behind refuse heaps containing seed from the plants they had selected from the wild. When they returned to that site, plants from the disposed seed were growing close at hand—and the favorite fruit selected from those. The cycle continued until these ‘camp follower’ varieties began to look strikingly different from the wild variety, and the first botanical varieties were born.

Later, people made more conscientious efforts in seed saving and, eventually, in classical breeding—saving seed from preferred varieties, and then crossing two plants of the same species, each with favorable characteristics, to create their optimal food crop. This method of plant breeding is still in use today.

A new method of breeding, transferring selected genes from one organism to another, developed in the early 1990s and has proven quite contentious. Plants and animals that are produced by this method of genetic recombination are most commonly known as genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). Combined with the technologies of gene mapping and sequencing, this technology has the capability to quickly select desired genes and transplant them into another organism—crossing species, genus, family, and even kingdom and domain boundaries. There is still much debate as to the efficacy and long-term consequences of this relatively new technology.

As disparate as they may seem, there are two common aspects that are shared by these three methods. The first is that each method, even the biotechnology-driven production of GMO’s, is dependent on the existence of genetic material. We can classically breed the biggest tomato or recombine DNA to produce our pharmaceuticals in corn, but neither can be done without the raw

genetic material contained in diverse species. Yet, genetic diversity amongst the wild and existing varieties of food crops on which we depend every day is disappearing at an alarming rate.

The second characteristic of all breeding methods is that they are driven by current human needs and desires. Four hundred years ago, the ideal rice plant may have been tall and aromatic, but by the 1980s, the ‘improved’ rice plant was short and had compact panicles that eliminated the threat of wind damage and facilitated machine harvesting. Now, researchers are combining rice with DNA that produces Vitamin A, in an attempt to alleviate nutrient deficiency in developing countries.

Many of the changes in agriculture over the past 50 years are attributed to the Green Revolution—a term used to describe a period in which government agencies, seed companies, and large aid organizations thought that world hunger could be alleviated, if not eliminated, with the development of a mechanized technological agriculture. Monoculture production systems, petroleum-based fertilizer regimens, and mechanized cultivation and harvesting methods were the mainstays of this agricultural revolution. Genetic material was selected that enhanced and supported the use of these tools at the expense of diversity, nutritive quality, taste, ecosystem function, cultural significance, and other factors. However, by the late 1990s, economists claimed that world hunger would not be improved, but worsened, by the ‘progress’ of the Green Revolution. Hunger was not a problem of a lack of quantity, but of distribution(Altieri, 2000). The advances of the Green Revolution were beneficial mainly to large landowners with permanent access to the new technology, while those living in extreme poverty had less access to food of any kind.

A rapid degradation of wild and local varieties resulted from the Green Revolution.

Farmers all over the world were given subsidies and sometimes land to grow the improved varieties and adopt modern agriculture. As a result, it became too expensive to grow the plants that had been handed down for generations, and land was cleared and leveled at an alarming rate to make way for large monoculture production systems. The result is seen today as an ever-declining pool of genetic diversity among our food crops.

As we move further into the 21st century, our needs, desires, and knowledge of the world will continue to evolve, but the raw material to create the necessary food crops, by whatever method we choose, may no longer exist. It is imperative that efforts be made to prevent the further genetic erosion of food crops.

The field of landscape architecture has a pivotal role to play in this arena. Although national gene banks (ex situ conservation) are necessary and useful, the vast majority of plant genetic resources will not be preserved without the preservation of land that supports the wild varieties, as well as measures of support for the farmers who continue to cultivate the diverse varieties (in situ conservation). This in situ conservation can be furthered by agricultural easements, covenants, and other protections for small farmers and landowners. The study of societies and food production—agroecology—is another area where Landscape Architects could be of use.

Understanding the ecology of agriculture, combined with human use patterns such as landscape and resource management, urban development, and transportation systems would contribute a great deal to designing region-specific solutions to hunger and distribution problems, as well as creating proactive approaches to conservation. Landscape Architecture can provide the interdisciplinary leadership to address these design problems on both a local and regional scale; thereby reducing the pressure from over-development and commercial agriculture that results in genetic erosion.

Ecological protection goes beyond wetlands and rainforests and directly into our own kitchens and lunch sacks. Preserving the diversity of the world’s food crops is essential to sustaining human life and alleviating extreme hunger. The resources and knowledge of landscape architects can help turn the tide of genetic erosion, and in the process, address the systemic issues of poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation.

References Altieri, Miguel A. 2000. Biotechnology: A Powerful Distraction From Solving World Hunger.

Diversity. 15(4):24-26.

Belasco, Warren. 1999. Why Food Matters. Culture and Agriculture. 21(1): 27-34.

Nazarea, Virginia D. 2005. Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.

Nazarea, Virginia D. 1998. Cultural memory and Biodiversity. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.

Zimmerer, Karl S. 1996. Changing Fortunes: Biodiversity and Peasant Livelihood in the Peruvian Andes. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Figure 1: Almolonga - Agricultural village in the western highlands of Guatemala and a center of diverse vegetable growing.

Figure 2: Farm in Western North Carolina employing methods of ecological agriculture.

Figure 3: Lago Atitlan: A high-altitude lake in Latin America - an ecosystem where many early crops were first cultivated.

Figure 3: Lago Atitlan: A high-altitude lake in Latin America - an ecosystem where many early crops were first cultivated.