Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Long-time readers may well remember that we have talked about Malawi’s fertilizer subsidy programme a number of times here over the past — what is it now? — 15 years? Let’s recap. Controversially, against the advice of its most powerful donors, Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika subsidized inputs through a government-funded voucher scheme known as …
Criticism of the Gates Foundation’s attempt to re-create the Green Revolution in Africa is not uncommon in some circles, and it will be interesting — if probably not particularly edifying — to see how those circles will parse Norman Borlaug’s legacy now that he’s gone. But the recent article in The Nation, although mostly predictable, …
The philosophy behind the One Acre Fund is clearly of a piece with that of the Millennium Villages and the Malawi fertilizer subsidy programme: giving farmers seeds, fertilizers, some advice and a market outlet will do wonders for livelihoods. In a way, it’s a no-brainer: of course it will! And it seems churlish and petty …
Continue reading “In which our blogger decides not to quibble about the One Acre Fund”
An article in the latest Economist discusses the Malawi fertilizer subsidy programme. There’s been a fair amount in the media about this lately, and in particular about whether the bumper maize harvests of the past couple of years can be attributed to the extra fertilizer ((Incidentally, there’s an interesting NY Times video on what the …
Something for the weekend. I hope you enjoy this special edition of Brainfood focusing on citizen science, Indigenous knowledge and participatory research. Do you like themed Brainfood editions like this? There will be another one on Monday, as it happens. They’re more tricky to produce, but if there’s significant interest I may make the extra …
Continue reading “Brainfood: Special citizen science edition”