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Veggies sprout, claims shock report on crop diversity

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

The IPKat's scholarly friend Paul J. Heald (Allen Post Professor of Law, University of Georgia, Visiting Professor, Oxford University 2009) has been busily writing up his study with Susannah Chapman on changes in crop diversity in the 20th century. As Paul puts it, this topic is "so hot it's incendiary!" In short, writes Paul:

"According to the conventional wisdom, the twentieth century was a disaster of monumental proportions for vegetable crop diversity. The conventional wisdom is wrong. Our study of 2004 commercial seed catalogs shows twice as many 1903 crop varieties surviving as previously reported in the iconic 1983 study on vegetable crop diversity. More important, we find that growers in 2004 had as many varieties to choose from (approximately 7,100 varieties among 48 crops) as did their predecessors in 1903 (approximately 7,262 varieties among the same 48 crops). In addition, we cast doubt on the number of distinct varieties actually available in 1903 by examining historical sources that expose the systematic practice of multiple naming. Finally, by looking more closely at the six biggest diversity winners of the twentieth century (tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, garden beans, squash, and garlic), we suggest that patent law is virtually irrelevant".

There's a short (9-page) note on this research here, or you can get the full version of "Crop Diversity Report Card for the Twentieth Century: Diversity Bust or Diversity Boom?" from SSRN here

Full post as published by IPKat on August 28, 2009 (boomark / email).