Nibbles: Chocolate & deforestation, Sweet potato breeding, Diversification, Aurochs redux, Flower viewing, Saharan history, CeCaCT

  • Chocolate makers decide to go green. How about conserving the genetic resources of the crop, though?
  • “Being a crop breeder in the modern world sometimes feels like being a fire fighter equipped with a very slow truck.”
  • UNDP supports agricultural diversification.
  • Reconstructing the aurochs.
  • We could all do with some hanami. And a hug.
  • Livestock keeping caused the Sahara?
  • President of Fiji visits regional genebank. Cue photo of people peering at test tubes.

One Reply to “Nibbles: Chocolate & deforestation, Sweet potato breeding, Diversification, Aurochs redux, Flower viewing, Saharan history, CeCaCT”

  1. Chocolate makers. Another US-based environmental group trying to wreck agriculture in developing countries . This time it’s `Mighty Earth’ – they wants chimp conservation and are also after Burger King – wanting, of course, to be bought off. Greenpeace is there too.There’s something about `destruction of virgin forests’. There are no virgin forests in Africa – it has all been used for probably millions of years. Chocolate companies are a model for germplasm conservation, even before the days of the cocoa unit at UWI, Trinidad (and also at CATIE). Leave them alone, they are bringing work to poor tropical countries. And I happen to love very high quality chocolate bars from all over the tropical world.

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