Jeremy Cherfas

May 22, 2011May 22, 2011

Organic breeding conferences

The European Consortium for Organic Plant Breeding (ECO-PB) has announced two up-coming meetings. One is dedicated to the European organic seed regime and the other one is a celebration of ECO-PB’s 10 year anniversary.

The Workshop on Organic Seed Regulation will take place at The Organic Research Centre near Newbury in England on 21-22 September 2011.

The 10-year shindig is scheduled for 3-4 November 2011 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. That one has a call for papers, due by 15 June 2011.

ECO-PB is having a little trouble making the documents available at its website. As a service, here they are.

If you go, consider blogging for us.

May 22, 2011May 23, 2011

Nibbles: Chemical life, Cacao disease, Clove disease, Ag value addition

The old go-intensive-so-we-don’t-have-to-plough-up-Nature-for-more-farmland argument rears its beautiful head again.
Frosty pod rot comes to Latin America’s cacao, but CATIE has the varieties.
But clove is not so lucky.
Value addition, the Kenyan way.

May 22, 2011May 22, 2011

Investment in agriculture; thousands of words worth.

Farming First has compiled a bunch of infographics about “Agriculure and the Green Economy”. Some of the sources are less than obvious, but it is good to have the headline figures. Here’s part of the one for investment. Click it for the whole thing.

May 22, 2011May 22, 2011

Featured: Seed suppliers

Back40 has this to say about farmers who encounter seed shortages:

All farmers, everywhere, have these issues and so they make plans ahead of time. If you show up at the last minute expecting to be able to buy whatever seed that you want you may be out of luck. This is called bad farming. The solution is not for a government or other org to enable bad farmers, it is to help them become good farmers.

Hard to disagree with that.

May 21, 2011May 21, 2011

Nibbles: Climate change, Guinea pigs, Eels, Seed

Community local knowledge confirms scientific findings on climate change. (Or vice versa?)
A CIAT video on “the potential of particular forage crops for improving guinea pig production, improving rural nutrition and incomes, and empowering women” in DRC.
Sustainable eel label. Like that’ll help. h/t The Tracing Paper.
The small scale farmer who is also Director of Communications and Public Affairs for AGRA runs into a seed shortage. So she plants an unsuitable maize variety and hopes for the best.