- Bananas resistant to bacterial wilt found at last.
- The Ethiopian genebank gets the very cool Atlas Obscura treatment.
- It needs a helping hand, though. Technology to the rescue in wheat rust management.
- Diversify your diet, why don’t you.
- Giving standing trees value in the Amazon. Great drone shots too.
- Carob trees have value in Cyprus.
- Also nice pix in this Guardian photo essay on how farmers fight climate change.
- Genotyping the CIP collection. That includes the humble potato, of course.
Nice to see the Ethiopian genebank linking to farmer seed-saving but, Oh dear, the tall stories of times-gone-by are still there.
“Though we don’t have specific figures, the scientific consensus is that 75 percent of the world’s crop diversity was lost over the course of the 20th century,” says Pat Mooney. [The 75% loss myth]
“The biggest problem was that these crops were engineered not to produce viable seeds, so seeds would have to be bought anew each year,” says Hobbelink. [the `Terminator’ seed myth]
“In 1976, a partnership between Germany and the Ethiopian government led to the establishment of a plant genetic resources center—i.e. seed bank—and Worede was named the program’s director.” [Facts: former Managers of PGRC/E, now the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute: 1) Dr. Tadesse Ebba: 1968-1971; 2) Dr. Melaku Werede: 1971-1985. Tadesse, a tef breeder, marvellous person, and Oromo nationalist, was on the wrong side of the communist government then running Ethiopia.] Note the dates are Ethiopian – about 7 years off `our’ dates.