Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
We’ve shown our skepticism about the Millennium Villages here before, in particular their apparent disregard for the importance of agrobiodiversity. If I am honest, I would say that that on balance they are probably a good thing. They are certainly well-intentioned. And little else seems to have worked. But no matter how many evaluation reports …
All the cool crops are doing it. Sorghum has a Facebook page. Any others? Soil microbes showing “increasing antibiotic resistance“. Big, expensive, new Seed Tech Institute for East Africa. I’m suspending judgement. h/t CAS-IP New Agriculturalist does the AgroSalud thing: biofortified staples. Speaking of which, you can biofortify chapatis with distillers grains. But what will …
“…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind. More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador. Heritage tourism …
“Francis Ratnieks, the UK’s only professor of apiculture, is undertaking pioneering research based on a breed of worker bee genetically programmed to keep hives clean.” Scaling up the Millennium Villages. Still no news on what it all means for agrobiodiversity. Good news for New England acorn lovers. Including the artisanal pork industry? The Ethiopian wolf …
Continue reading “Nibbles: Bees, Millennium Villages, Oaks, Wolf, CWR”
Compare and contrast the banana and the Big Mac. Dan Koeppel takes it to the masses. Lamenting the loss of “amber waves of grain”. Ingrate. Cameroon’s agriculture vulnerable to climate change. I’ll alert the media. Look what I got you for National Pollinator Week next week; a World Checklist of Bees. Neat-o. Celebrate food and …