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gautam · 11-18-2010, 05:08 AM

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your very warm welcome. I am unfamiliar with the etiquette, and it may take a while to respond to all who have personally welcomed me. In the meanwhile, please consider this note as a very sincere THANK YOU to each one of you.

If am not violating any rules of conduct, may I offer my heartfelt prayers gratitude to the many banana workers, enthusiasts and scientists, embodied in the person and humanitarian soul of Dr. Dirk R. Vuylsteke who was killed in a plane crash in the Ivory Coast (?) in 2000. John Hartman, another banana breeder from the USA and Paul Speijer, a Dutch nematologist died along with him [R. Ortiz writing a memorial piece in PLANT BREEDING REVIEWS, vol.21, p.5-11; Jules Janick ed.].

I have been very interested in his work since both plantains and banana form an important yet invisible safety net in my native agro-ecosystem that has been completely ignored by the so-called Green Revolution in South Asia. When we go to Vuylsteke's successes with his vigorous crossing & hybridization program, we notice that >85% of the crosses have Calcutta-4 as the male parent. Is it not remarkable how a SINGLE Indian landrace has become the foundational workhorse for this first generation of Musa genetics?

That is why my great anxiety to not lose the parallel stocks of the massively vigorous SEEDY congener, which has yet to be sufficiently characterized. There are so many root studies and nutritional genetics research that have not even been put into place. I have noticed that only when the interests of commercial agriculture and subsistence agriculture can be demonstrated to be on the same page that research funds become available.

Musa is lucky to have vast commercial interests threatened with many of the same ills that plague the small farmer. Even more luckily, unlike grains, Musa research is valuable AT ALL SCALES: progress in knowledge helps the "landless" possessing but a single clump just as much as it does the corporation farming a million stems. Grains, legumes, and annuals are often scale-sensitive: they favor the larger farmer who can afford more market-based inputs. Musa & Palm are amenable to "farm-sourced" inputs,including (and especially) humanure and household waste that othrwise become a huge hazard around the "landless "homestead" that enjoys only a narrow strip of land 1-2 meters around the actual (earthen building).

For long, crazy people like me and lately, the truly extraordinary HELLEN KELLER FOUNDATION [in Bangladesh] have expended enormous effort trying to make these strips produce food and not become midden/waste dumps by default.

In warm, humid climates, the banana is a happy and efficient converter of the types of wastes generated by these households with babies and growing children and no toilets nor any really separate areas to wash. Waste water and waste need an environment and banana and vegetable beds mulched with straw offer a sort of solution.The vegetables chosen are climbers that can make use of the SUNLIT EXPANSE OF THE COTTAGE ROOF and keep their protein rich leaves & fruit completely OFF the dangerous soil. Ditto, the bananas, and sugar date palms that are tapped for sap. Each harvest a niche of the light environment and create a sunflecked environment to prevent oversaturation.

It is simply amazing what change a SINGLE BANANA clump, a SINGLE good quality LIME tree and a SINGLE sugar date palm can bring to the lives of the typical 7-8 members of a struggling household who subsist on rice and not much else. (I won't get into the statistics of the numbers of children blinded by Vitamin A deficiency in green lands]. No other fertilizer or resource is necessary.

That is why researchers like Dr. Vuylsteke and others like him need to be recognized. Their work is beyond description. All could have chosen comfortable, non-hazardous careers in attractive institutions of the world and garnered much more acclaim and dealt with infinitely fewer frustrations and daily torment. This sacrifice was doubly relevant for their families. Yet neither they nor their families stepped back.

Thank you.

11-18-2010, 05:08 AM	#4 (permalink)
gautam Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 5 BananaBucks : 3,789 Feedback: 0 / 0% Said "Thanks" 0 Times Was Thanked 12 Times in 5 Posts Said "Welcome to Bananas" 0 Times	Re: Hi from newb! Dear Friends, Thank you for your very warm welcome. I am unfamiliar with the etiquette, and it may take a while to respond to all who have personally welcomed me. In the meanwhile, please consider this note as a very sincere THANK YOU to each one of you. If am not violating any rules of conduct, may I offer my heartfelt prayers gratitude to the many banana workers, enthusiasts and scientists, embodied in the person and humanitarian soul of Dr. Dirk R. Vuylsteke who was killed in a plane crash in the Ivory Coast (?) in 2000. John Hartman, another banana breeder from the USA and Paul Speijer, a Dutch nematologist died along with him [R. Ortiz writing a memorial piece in PLANT BREEDING REVIEWS, vol.21, p.5-11; Jules Janick ed.]. I have been very interested in his work since both plantains and banana form an important yet invisible safety net in my native agro-ecosystem that has been completely ignored by the so-called Green Revolution in South Asia. When we go to Vuylsteke's successes with his vigorous crossing & hybridization program, we notice that >85% of the crosses have Calcutta-4 as the male parent. Is it not remarkable how a SINGLE Indian landrace has become the foundational workhorse for this first generation of Musa genetics? That is why my great anxiety to not lose the parallel stocks of the massively vigorous SEEDY congener, which has yet to be sufficiently characterized. There are so many root studies and nutritional genetics research that have not even been put into place. I have noticed that only when the interests of commercial agriculture and subsistence agriculture can be demonstrated to be on the same page that research funds become available. Musa is lucky to have vast commercial interests threatened with many of the same ills that plague the small farmer. Even more luckily, unlike grains, Musa research is valuable AT ALL SCALES: progress in knowledge helps the "landless" possessing but a single clump just as much as it does the corporation farming a million stems. Grains, legumes, and annuals are often scale-sensitive: they favor the larger farmer who can afford more market-based inputs. Musa & Palm are amenable to "farm-sourced" inputs,including (and especially) humanure and household waste that othrwise become a huge hazard around the "landless "homestead" that enjoys only a narrow strip of land 1-2 meters around the actual (earthen building). For long, crazy people like me and lately, the truly extraordinary HELLEN KELLER FOUNDATION [in Bangladesh] have expended enormous effort trying to make these strips produce food and not become midden/waste dumps by default. In warm, humid climates, the banana is a happy and efficient converter of the types of wastes generated by these households with babies and growing children and no toilets nor any really separate areas to wash. Waste water and waste need an environment and banana and vegetable beds mulched with straw offer a sort of solution.The vegetables chosen are climbers that can make use of the SUNLIT EXPANSE OF THE COTTAGE ROOF and keep their protein rich leaves & fruit completely OFF the dangerous soil. Ditto, the bananas, and sugar date palms that are tapped for sap. Each harvest a niche of the light environment and create a sunflecked environment to prevent oversaturation. It is simply amazing what change a SINGLE BANANA clump, a SINGLE good quality LIME tree and a SINGLE sugar date palm can bring to the lives of the typical 7-8 members of a struggling household who subsist on rice and not much else. (I won't get into the statistics of the numbers of children blinded by Vitamin A deficiency in green lands]. No other fertilizer or resource is necessary. That is why researchers like Dr. Vuylsteke and others like him need to be recognized. Their work is beyond description. All could have chosen comfortable, non-hazardous careers in attractive institutions of the world and garnered much more acclaim and dealt with infinitely fewer frustrations and daily torment. This sacrifice was doubly relevant for their families. Yet neither they nor their families stepped back. Thank you.