A blog maintained by Tevita Kete, PGR Officer

Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji Islands

 

   

This weblog documents the activities of Pacific Agricultural Genetic Resources Network (PAPGREN), along with other information on plant genetic resources (PGR) in the Pacific.

The myriad varieties found within cultivated plants are fundamental to the present and future productivity of agriculture. PAPGREN, which is coordinated by the Land Resources Division of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), helps Pacific countries and territories to conserve their crop genetic diversity sustainably, with technical assistance from the Bioversity International (BI) and support from NZAID and ACIAR.

SPC also hosts the Centre of Pacific Crops and Trees (CEPaCT). The CEPaCT maintains regional in vitro collections of crops important to the Pacific and carries out research on tissue culture technology. The CEPaCT Adviser is Dr Mary Taylor (MaryT@spc.int), the CEPaCT Curator is Ms Valerie Tuia (ValerieT@spc.int).

 

 

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PAPGREN coordination and support

  • IPGRI
  • ACIAR
  • NZAID
  • CTA
  • SPC
  • PAPGREN
  • CEPaCT

     genebank locations
    Click on the thumbnail to see a map of the locations of Pacific genebanks. Click here to download a regional directory of genebanks in the Pacific, including information on their location, contact details and holdings.

    PAPGREN partners


    Mr William Wigmore
    Director of Research
    Ministry of Agriculture
    Department of Resources & Development
    P.O. Box 96
    Rarotonga
    Cook Islands
    Tel: (682) 28711-29720
    Fax: (682) 21881
    Email: cimoa@oyster.net.ck

    Mr Adelino S. Lorens
    Chief
    Agriculture Pohnpei
    Office of Economic Affairs
    P.O. Box 1028
    Kolonia
    Pohnpei 96941
    Federated States of Micronesia
    Tel: (691) 3202400
    Fax: (691) 3202127
    Email: pniagriculture@mail.fm

    Dr Lois Englberger
    Island Food Community of Pohnpei
    Research Advisor
    P.O. Box 2299
    Kolonia
    Pohnpei 96941
    Federated States of Micronesia
    Email: nutrition@mail.fm

    Mr Apisai Ucuboi
    Director of Research
    Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forest
    Koronivia Research Station
    P.O. Box 77
    Nausori
    Fiji Islands
    Tel: (679) 3477044
    Fax: (679) 3477546-400262
    Email: apisainu@yahoo.com

    Dr Maurice Wong
    Service du Developpement Rural
    B.P. 100
    Papeete
    Tahiti 98713
    French Polynesia
    Tel: (689) 42 81 44
    Fax: (689) 42 08 31
    Email: maurice.wong@rural.gov.pf

    Mr Tianeti Beenna Ioane
    Head, Research Section
    Division of Agriculture
    Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development
    P.O. Box 267
    Tarawa
    Kiribati
    Tel: (686) 28096-28108-28080
    Fax: (686) 28121
    Email : agriculture@tskl.net.ki; Beenna_ti@yahoo.com

    Mr Frederick Muller
    Secretary
    Ministry of Resources & Development
    P.O. Box 1727
    Majuro 96960
    Marshall Islands
    Tel: (692) 6253206
    Fax: (692) 6257471
    Email: rndsec@ntamar.net

    Mr Herman Francisco
    Director
    Bureau of Agriculture
    Ministry of Resources & Development
    P.O. Box 460
    Koror 96940
    Palau
    Tel: (680) 4881517
    Fax: (680) 4881725
    Email: bnrd@pnccwg.palaunet.com

    Ms Rosa Kambuou
    Principal Scientist PGR
    NARI Dry Lowlands Programme
    Laloki Agricultural Research Station
    P.O. Box 1828
    Boroko
    National Capital District
    Papua New Guinea
    Tel: (675) 3235511
    Fax: (675) 3234733
    Email: kambuou@global.net.pg

    Ms Laisene Samuelu
    Principal Crop Development Officer
    Crops Division
    Ministry of Agriculture, Forests, Fisheries & Meteorology
    P.O. Box 1874
    Apia
    Samoa
    Tel: (685) 23416-20605
    Fax: (685) 20607-23996
    Email: lsamuelu@lesamoa.net

    Mr Jimi Saelea
    Director of Research
    Department of Agriculture and Livestock
    P.O. Box G13
    Honiara
    Guadalcanal
    Solomon Islands
    Tel: (677) 27987

    Mr Tony Jansen
    Planting Materials Network
    Kastom Gaden Association
    Burns Creek, Honiara
    P.O. Box 742
    Honiara
    Solomon Islands
    Tel: (677) 39551
    Email: kastomgaden@solomon.com.sb

    Mr Finao Pole
    Head of Research
    Ministry of Agriculture & Forests
    P.O. Box 14
    Nuku'alofa
    Tonga
    Tel: (676) 23038
    Fax: (676) 24271
    Email: thaangana@hotmail.com

    Mr Frazer Bule Lehi
    Head of Research
    Department of Agriculture & Rural Development
    Private Mail Bag 040
    Port Vila
    Vanuatu
    Tel: (678) 22525
    Fax: (678) 25265
    Email: flehi@hotmail.com

    Other links

    Other CROP agencies
    Forum Secretariat
    University of the South Pacific
    SPREP

    Pacific biodiversity
    Biodiversity hotspots
    Breadfruit Institute
    Hawaiian native plants
    Intellectual property rights
    Nature Conservancy
    PBIF
    PestNet
    SIDS
    WWF South Pacific Program

    Other Pacific organizations
    Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific
    Micronesian Seminar
    Te Puna web directory

    Pacific news
    Cafe Pacific
    CocoNET Wireless
    Island Directory
    Pacific Islands News
    Pacific Islands Report
    Pacific Islands Travel
    Pacific Time
    South Pacific travel
    Time Pacific

    Interested in GIS?
    DIVA-GIS

     

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    Wednesday, November 27, 2002


    What is the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species?

    The Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species is a multi-stakeholder initiative established in June 2002 under the umbrella of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and currently hosted by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) at its headquarters in Rome, Italy. The Unit supports and facilitates the work on different aspects of underutilized species at different levels by networks, organizations, agencies and others around the world. The initiative aims at strengthening these stakeholders and encouraging new commitments for the development of underutilized species.

    This is a test version of the GFU website.

    If you'd like the GFU to include your organization in their database, fill in this questionnaire.

    Contact:
    Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon
    Coordinator GFU for Underutilized Species
    c/o IPGRI
    Via dei Tre Denari, 472/a
    00057 Maccarese
    Rome, Italy
    Tel.: ++39-06-6118-292
    Fax: ++39-06-61979661
    email: i.zeledon@cgiar.org

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    Tuesday, November 26, 2002

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    I was at Koronivia Agricultural Research Station just outside Suva, Fiji for the past two days attending the National PGR Stakeholder Workshop. About 30 people from various government bodies participated (there will be a wider consultation early in the new year). We heard about current PGR conservation and use activities and also visited the field, in vitro and seed genebanks of the Ministry of Agriculture, Sugar and Land Resettlement. A mechanism for national coordination on PGR was agreed, and some key priority activities identified in PGR surveying and conservation, public awareness and capacity building. More details later.

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    Thursday, November 21, 2002


    Came across this fun article in the NY Times today. An interesting approach to on-farm conservation?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/dining/20YAMS.html

    In the Kingdom of the Sweet Potato
    By R. W. APPLE Jr.
    PELOUSAS, La.
    But the big event of the year in Opelousas - the local equivalent of Pasadena's Rose Parade or Punxsutawney's Groundhog Day - features something altogether different: the sweet potato. Late every October, as the harvest is reaching its climax, just in time for Louisiana growers to ship the tubers off to their appointed places on holiday menus in countless American homes, local civic dignitaries stage a five-day sweet potato extravaganza. A treasured tradition for the last 57 years, it's called the Yambilee Festival.

    The name is the town's contribution to the mindless muddle of tuber terminology, which would drive Linnaeus up the wall.
    Sweet potatoes aren't really yams; yams, which belong to the genus Dioscorea, are grown widely in Africa, where they originated, and elsewhere in the tropics but scarcely at all in the United States. What we are dealing with here is Ipomoea batatas, which is not only not a yam but not a true potato. Believed to be a native of Central America, it is closely related to the morning glory, with the same purplish, heart-shaped leaves. Sweet potatoes, which are less dense and starchy than yams, are rich in healthful beta carotene, an important source of vitamin A.

    Got all of that? O.K. But actually, why quibble? Call it Yambilee or SweetPotatoFest, it's a hoot either way, with its carnival rides and contests for the best-looking sweet potatoes, a Grand Louisyam Parade and displays of sweet potatoes that look like animals. These are called yam-i-mals.

    There is enough royalty on hand to fill the palaces of Europe - not only the Yambilee Queen and her court but also King Yum Yum and Queen Yum Yum, Queen Marigold and King Willyam (these people have no shame whatsoever) and all manner of visiting majesties, including the Jambalaya Queen, the Frog Festival Queen, the Delcambre Shrimp Queen, the Sawmill Festival Queen, Miss Contraband and Miss Sulphur Mines. (Yambilee queens of yesteryear are people of standing in their communities; local boosters told me with evident pride that one former queen, Mrs. Janet Begneaud, is the sister of the painter Robert Rauschenberg.)

    There is also a kind of culinary decathalon, with contests in 10 categories, as follows: yam pone, yam casserole, yam and beef, yam and seafood, yam pie, yam cake, yam candy, yam cookies, yam breads and the inescapable candied yams.
    My wife, Betsey, and I didn't get a chance to taste this year's winners. By the time we got here, rain had been falling steadily for days, and the fairgrounds were awash. But I'm not sure I would have been a suitably impartial judge anyway. Like many a youth of tender sensibilities, I was put off at an early age by a Thanksgiving casserole of sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. Ever since, I've been a bit of a yamophobe (they've got me doing it now).
    I have never understood why people feel they have to douse sweet potatoes with molasses or maple syrup or brown sugar; to me, they taste just fine baked, scooped from the skin and flavored with butter, salt and pepper. Alice Waters, conscious of the Latin origins of sweet potatoes, sometimes adds some lime juice and a few cilantro leaves, and that suits me just fine as well.

    In the hands of a master baker, sweet potatoes can be turned into mouthwatering desserts. At a recent Southern Foodways Alliance symposium in Oxford, Miss., Karen Barker of the Magnolia Grill in Durham, N.C., dazzled everyone with a light, satiny sweet potato pie, and the sweet potato cheesecake is a real crowd-pleaser on the dessert menu at Galatoire's in New Orleans.

    Sweet potatoes are believed to have originated in Central America. The Spanish explorer Fernando De Soto found Indians growing them in this area in 1540. The principal commercial variety of sweet potato grown in Louisiana is the Beauregard, developed by Louisiana State University scientists in the 1980's to help farmers here regain their place in the sweet potato sun, which they were rapidly losing to South Carolina. Well suited to the silty, loamy Louisiana soils, it is a reliable producer, resistant to disease, naturally very sweet, with handsome golden flesh.

    Dr. Mike Cannon, the head of the Louisiana State University sweet potato research station in Chase, La., told me that the state is now the nation's third-ranking sweet potato producer, after South Carolina and California. In 2001, the last year for which full figures were available, the state produced 150,000 tons of the tubers, most of them on farms of 500 acres or more in West Carroll, Franklin, Richland and Morehouse Parishes, in the northeastern corner of the state.

    St. Landry Parish, surrounding Opelousas deep in south Louisiana, is the traditional center of sweet potato cultivation. No longer the actual center, it still produces a crop worth about $3.5 million in a good year. Which this is not likely to be, what with a visit from Hurricane Isidore and pelting, almost unceasing rains ever since.

    "Forty, fifty percent of our crop is going to rot in the ground," said Gerald Roberts, the L.S.U. AgCenter county agent here. "Hard times are coming. The farmers can't get into the fields to finish the harvest. Some of our farmers, I'm afraid, aren't going to be farmers by next year."

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    Wednesday, November 20, 2002


    Preparations for the Third Taro Symposium progressing nicely. The draft programme is ready, a brochure and website are in preparation, and we have received a pledge of US$10,000 from FAO. The conference will be held 20-22 May 2003, probably in Nadi, Fiji. The following themes have been agreed by the organizing committee:

    Keynote Paper Taro Research Since the Second Taro Symposium
    Theme 1 Taro Diversity, Ethnobotany and Conservation
    Theme 2 Pests and Diseases
    Theme 3 Production Constraints
    Theme 4 Breeding and Distribution of Improved Materials
    Theme 5 New Products and Product Development (Processing)
    Theme 6 Quality Standards and Marketing

    We have also secured some funding from FAO for activities relating to monitoring the implementation of the Global Plan of Action in Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

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    Monday, November 18, 2002


    This is a busy week, preparing for the re-scheduled Fiji national workshop on 25-26th, TaroGen meeting on 28th and PAPGREN breadfruit workshop on 29th November. Together with Mary Taylor and Tom Osborn, we have also prepared a draft SPC strategy paper on PGRFA.


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    Monday, November 11, 2002


    Just back from a very interesting week in Lae and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. We had a very fruitful national PGR workshop, which identified some very concrete priorities for action on both the ex situ and in situ fronts and established a national technical committee to coordinate PGRFA activities in the country. Many thanks to Rosa Kambuou and Geoff Wiles of NARI for organizing the workshop. We'll be preparing a full report in the coming days, which I'll post here in due course.

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