- The Leveraging Agriculture: what engaged participants? And the IFPRI contribution. What’s the intersection of those two sets, I wonder.
- Productive means susceptible. Except when it doesn’t. I’m in that kind of mood today.
- The deep origins of Vitis.
Earth Microbiome Project sets an example
Is there any good reason why we should not do this with agrobiodiversity, starting with crops and their wild relatives? In fact, is there any good reason why we have not done it already?
Effects of looting of Egyptian genebank on film
We’ve heard again from El-Sayed Mohamed El-Azazi, who is Executive Director of the Egyptian Deserts Gene Bank at the North Sinai Research Station. This time it’s a video of the effects of the recent looting, which he sent to our colleagues at Bioversity International. He confirms that the tissue culture and molecular labs have been destroyed, as well as part of the herbarium, and all computers stolen. But also that the seeds are still ok in the cold room, as you can see towards the end of the video. El-Sayed suggests in his commentary, which is for the most part a sad enumeration of equipment destroyed or stolen, that the looters were perhaps afraid to go into the cold room, and that’s why they left it unharmed.
Egyptian Desert Genebank from Crop Trust on Vimeo.
Featured: Tomato taxes
Don takes a trip down memory lane:
I recall a huge tomato model in a plastic box at UC Davis with a sign that went something like, “This is a model of the canning tomato, which was developed in this building. Tax revenues from it would support…” (something huge). I wonder if anyone remembers that tomato model.
Over to you, crowd; any wisdom on that?
Nibbles: Asparagus, Phosphorus, Goats, Chocolate
- Peru exporting water it doesn’t have, hidden in asparagus.
- P summit takes peak phosphorus seriously; will anyone else?
- Goats are us. New ILRI effort in India and Mozambique.
- Who ground the chocolate? Rachel puts cacao in perspective.