Jeremy Cherfas

February 20, 2009

Featured: Assisted living

Vernon Heywood on Assisting crop wild relatives:

Moving species into new environments is … a contentious issue and may involve considerable risks. It is a complex issue involving not just scientific, technical and economic but sociological and ethical considerations. It requires a sound and well thought out policy framework before it is widely undertaken as a management response to global change but might be prove to be appropriate in a number of high priority species such as CWR of major crops.

Who else is doing the thinking? And where?

February 19, 2009

Featured: Genebanks

Carla Barber, from Canada’s National Research Council Plant Biotechnology Institute, offers a glimpse of the genebank database that will be launched in about a month:

The seed database … supports searching of various scientific data associated with each seed line such as Agronomic, Biochemical, Phenotypic, Genetic, Proteomic, Structural, Publications, as well as the option to integrate more Data Categories in the future.

Do you believe in Heaven?

February 18, 2009February 18, 2009

Nibbles: Space, Grape shapes, Genetic diversity, Diseases, Bamboo, Geographic indications, Cacao

Sweet potatoes in space. Why?
Oblong grapes. Why?
Mega targets of selection. Why?
Uganda battles cassava and banana diseases.
Increased bamboo production will not, repeat NOT, put the panda at risk.
Mandatory disclosure of source and origin for Genetic Resources (GR) and Traditional Knowledge (TK) unpacked. Well, kinda.
Gates funds cacao, cashew value chain. But not conservation, it seems.

February 17, 2009February 18, 2009

Speaking of tubers …

“They’re the Ingrid Bergman to oca’s Marilyn Monroe.”

Rhizowen, the freshest new (old) voice in weird and wonderful veg is at it again with another go at Crap Crops of the Incas. This time the object of his adoration is ulluco. I wonder how they’d do on Vanuatu?

February 17, 2009February 17, 2009

Mapping sustainability

Resilience Science points to many efforts to use community mapping as a force for development and empowerment. Sometimes, in our cups, we dream of a set of globally connected maps devoted to agricultural biodiversity. Something really simple, like performance reports from specific crops, varieties and types of farm could be linked with geodata which in turn would allow it to be linked to all manner of environmental data. It would grow into the database that ate the world, but more to the point could help feed the world.

Of course, dreaming doesn’t make it so, but Green Maps seems to put all the tools at anyone’s disposal. Is anyone out there doing anything for agrobiodiversity? I searched, but couldn’t find anything except for urban outlets for the products of sustainable farms. Important, but not enough.