- Who’d be a coffee farmer in Colombia?
- Farming First eats nutrition.
Featured: Egyptian genebank
More news has come in from the Desert Research Center in Egypt, which is spread over several sites. We knew the genebank in North Sinai had been looted, while the national genebank, near Giza, seemed to be safe. Now we learn that a site at Matrya, on the outskirts of Cairo, has been robbed, with 300-400 computers and other equipment loaded into private cars between 1 and 5 in the morning. At least, that’s what I get from the message, which seems to have been through a combination of machine and human translation. Having but two words of Arabic, I can’t complain. However, if anyone out there more fluent than me would like to get in contact and prepare a more readable account, we’ll be happy to host it. Anonymously if need be.
How much do world food prices influence African market prices?
Everybody’s talking about the current food price crisis; what it means, what’s causing it; whether it is an opportunity to ask for increased funding. With impeccable timing, IFPRI has released a report examining the extent to which market prices in sub-Saharan Africa reflect changes in global prices. I haven’t read it, and here are IFPRI’s take-home messages:
- Staple food prices in these countries rose 63 percent between mid-2007 and mid-2008, about three-quarters of the proportional increase in world prices.
- Statistical analysis over 5 to 10 years indicates a long-term relationship with world prices in only 13 of the 62 African food prices examined. African rice prices are more closely linked to world markets than are maize prices.
- The global food crisis was unusual in influencing African food prices, probably because of the size of the increase and the fact that it coincided with oil price increases. Policy responses and local factors exacerbated the effect in some cases.
IFPRI does then go on to offer some suggestions.
The Concrete Corn Field
This picture contains more layers of meaning than you can possibly imagine. Nicola Twilley unpacks some of them at GOOD. Has she left any out?
Nibbles: Egyptian mysteries, Svalbard, Pineapple fabric, Chinese alcohol, Seed Saving
- “Readers, florists, Egyptians, can you help?” Maybe some of them are crops.
- Seeds move from South to North for safety. Australia backs up to Norway.
- Tired of your hair shirt? Try pineapple fibre.
- The history of alcohol in China; Happy Rabbit.
- How to save heirloom seeds (for people near Central Arkansas).
- Food and War (not what you think; a book review)