- I love pictures of agrobiodiversity in markets.
- Humans did for trees on Rapa Nui after all, not rats.
- Like refining chocolate, extracting honey is a fragrant, messy process. Bring it on.
- Fair Trade coffee unfair to farmers, CIAT says.
- Another day, another genome. This time it’s cowpea.
- 2000 year old food forest in Morocco. Honestly! And guess what? It’s not thriving.
- Another video (long). Education of an Urban Farmer.
- Education of an ex-pastoralist farmer, Karamojong, Kenya
Empty vessels and GMOs
You know the old story about the two women ranting at one another from their respective doorsteps on opposite sides of a narrow street. And a passing wit 1 remarked: “They will never agree, for they argue from different premises”. That’s how I feel about almost everything and everyone involved in almost every kind of discussion of genetic engineering.
Watch, if you will, this extract from a longer discussion with Michael Pollan, foodsayer extraordinaire.
Now, tell me, what exactly did he say that might cause someone else to say
I’m thinking he is just another tool. Now he suddenly supports “open source” genetic engineering…absolutely not….playing god/artifically manipulating DNA is not our place.
What’s with the “scare quotes”? How does a self-described seed breeder manage to elide playing god with artificially manipulating DNA?
I’m reminded of another quote, this one definitely attributable to Woody Allen. It runs something like this 2
The great advantage of being smart is that you can always act like an imbecile, while the reverse is never possible.
Hell yeah.
The Kew publicity machine hits overdrive
Yes, there’s a twitter feed. Another video on youtube. A splurge on the BBC. And this teaser on Facebook:
On Thursday, Kew will announce a major conservation milestone for mankind. Any guesses?
I’m not sure about that, but I’m looking forward to the continued unfolding of the Royal Botanic Gardens’ new communications strategy, I must say.
Nibbles: Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Agrobiodiversity tourism, Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle, Eels
- A Sri Lankan renaissance farmer muses.
- A Mongolian renaissance farmer talks.
- The Opium Museum and the Corn Palace.
- Guam fights rhino beetle with virus to save coconuts.
- Dutch ban eel fishing.
Save our toddy
We like toddy here. We like to drink it, when we can. And we like to blog about it. We don’t like to read that it is threatened by nasty phytoplasma diseases which “have weakened the health and vitality of coconut trees resulting in scarcity of Kuttanad’s-own pure toddy (Madura Kallu).” Can nothing be done?