- Perennial grains need your help.
- “In Cuba no one is helpless or dying of hunger.”
- Biodiversity in wine champion. But what about other cultivated species?
- “It’s called Ukee and it is a very special red raspberry“. Jeremy says “BTDTGTTS.”
- A sceptic evaluates “Food, Inc.”. Jeremy says “we shall see”.
- “I hope that the charcoal fever passes and the zealots and rent seekers move on to the next big fantasy”. May they pyrolize in Hell.
- Welcome, “curly cucumbers, crooked carrots and mottled mushrooms“!
Good news from Trinidad & Tobago
While many newspaper readers and television viewers overseas are, repeatedly, exposed to negative news about this country, particularly with respect to the uncomfortable rise in the level of murders, it would be a plus for the image of the twin island State if these people could be apprised as well of the contribution of Trinidad and Tobago’s International Cocoa Gene Bank.
Go get ’em, George Alleyne, who writes to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Cocoa Gene Bank. We all share the problem of interesting people in news about agricultural biodiversity, when what they really want is murder and mayhem.
Rice breeding gets a boost … and needs it
The Hindu reports that the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute (TRRI) is now involved in the Cereal System Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), a project funded by USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and launched in January. One of the interesting, but arcane, aspects of The Hindu’s coverage is the use of the phrase “mega collaborative project” to describe CSISA. That phrase may resonate with people involved in the CGIAR’s latest effort to reinvent itself. The other is that “proven technologies will be delivered to the farmers and the pipeline technologies will be evaluated in Adaptive Research Trials for fine tuning and delivery”.
Will those proven technologies include the use of biodiversity other than as a source of interesting traits for the pipeline technologists?
We said originally that CSISA “deserves to be a success” but we’re still wondering how innovative the approach will be.
Rice is clearly going to need all the help it can get to continue to feed people in the next few decades. SciDev.net reports on a recent publication from scientists in Bangladesh predicting a 20% drop in yields to 2050 and a 50% drop to 2075. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the figures, but I can say that the world needs to wake up to the fact that changes are coming, that they are going to require flexibility and adaptability, and that it is not too late to start preparing.
Nibbles: Tropical fruits, Thresher, Diet
- Kings, queens and mangosteens. Luigi to report shortly.
- Threshing sorghum? On yer bike!
- Oh rats! Dietary diversity in Niger.
Agribusiness at the trough
I’m not fully up-to-date with the latest wiles of industrial agriculture in the US, but I do have the feeling that they are spoiling things for everyone with their subsidies and special exemptions. Fortunately, I can read Susan Schneider’s latest post at Agricultural Law: Agriculture’s embarrassment. She refers to a column by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post that lays bare the self-serving antics of the farm lobby, and I’m pretty sure that what happens in the US happens in most other developed countries (but maybe not New Zealand).
Two things seem to be at work here. One is the public view — fostered by all those little-red-barn-and-mixed-livestock-in-the-kindly-farmer’s-yard books for children — that just about everything is fine on Old MacDonald’s farm, and that to thank Old MacDonald for the loving care he takes over our food supply we better give him what he asks for. The other is the reality of industrial food production, which nobody — least of all the food industry — wants anyone to know about.
The eating public — and what does consumer mean, after all? — really needs to open its eyes to what is being done in its name.
Meantime, Susan Schneider has the last word:
The agricultural community should stop to consider not only its own long range interest in climate protection, but to consider the public good that we all need keep in mind in order to address the issue of climate change. And, if it really wants to be selfish, it can also consider the backlash that may well be coming. Pearlman concludes his article with the following:
“The next time the world’s most selfish lobby comes to Washington demanding drought relief, someone ought to have the good sense to tell them to go pound sand.”
An industry so wedded to government support and special treatment should pick its battles wisely.
It is time for the agricultural industry to grow up and acknowledge that there are environmental problems that EVERYONE needs to work together to address.