- An Evening of Conversation with Carlo Petrini: “I found it both inspiring and frustrating.”
- A retired employee of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lopez, 70, is not your typical chile farmer.
- Wild potato confers resistance to root-knot nematode. Ask for it by name: PA99N82-4
- A simple machine for threshing sorghum and millet in developing countries. Go team!
Happy 25th, LEISA!
LEISA Magazine has chosen a fitting theme to celebrate its jubilee: diversity.
It expresses itself in many ways. There are diverse landscapes and ecosystems, diverse ways of life, diverse crops and agricultural systems. Small farms have been naturally benefiting from the diversity in their natural environment.
I wont even try to summarize. The contents are here. To the next 25 years!
Wild fruit relatives threatened in Central Asia
Fauna & Flora International and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) have published a Red List of Trees of Central Asia. This is part of the Global Trees Campaign.
The new report identifies 44 tree species in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan as globally threatened with extinction. Many of these species occur in the unique fruit and nut forests of Central Asia, an estimated 90% of which have been destroyed in the past 50 years.
One of the threatened fruit trees is the red-fleshed Malus niedzwetzkyana, from Kyrgyzstan.
Working with the Kyrgyz National Academy of Sciences, the Global Trees Campaign is identifying populations of this rare tree in Kyrgyzstan and taking measures to improve their conservation. With distinctive red-fleshed fruit, the Niedzwetzky apple is an excellent flagship for the conservation and sustainable management of this beleagured forest type.
The report is available online.
Policy advice for Europe
A modest proposal from the Network Semences Paysannes:
Levy a tax on the sale of seeds which cannot be freely reproduced, and earmark the money for the financing of seed houses and collaborative breeding programmes.
That’ll work.
Nibbles: Invasives, Climate change^2, Bananas, Fibres
- Songs raise awareness about aquatic invasive species. Jeremy says: Kill me now.
- Long, long post about climate change in Africa. Part 2 “coming soon”.
- Yemen prepares for climate change. Need a “strategy for the promotion of rain-fed agriculture”.
- Bananas from Iceland … Jeremy says: I don’t get it.
- New Agriculturist focuses on natural fibres.