- Wilson Wong raves about banana name book. We say: “Banana? Plantain? What’s the difference?”
- ¿Hablas español? ¿Quieres aprender sobre el Tratado Internacional? Sigue este link.
- Nice take on food shortages; realistic water pricing will cut waste.
- (North) American farmer loves quinoa.
- Africa’s “banana mama” tells Linda Nordling how winning the YARA prize has been the fulfilment of a lifelong goal.
- IRRI receives $500,000 handout; wonder what the true cost to the donor was.
- “Let’s extensively raise goats in all families.”
Tangled Bank 113
Just a week after 112, 113 appears. The fortnightly Tangled Bank schedule, in other words, is over its little hiccup and is back on track at En Tequila Es Verdad. Which reminds me, I wish I could get our resident peanut expert to explore his other favourite plant, agave, and give the straight dope on all those fine tequilas he’s experienced. But I digress. Which is what Dana does too in her post. All over the shop. In time and space. Visiting some parallel universe, she aims to persuade one C. Darwin to publish his book, where the less than thunderous reception of his paper at the Linnean Society seems to have dimmed his ardour. Perhaps in that universe Mr Darwin actually bothered to trek up to London for the evening and bored the Burlington Berties rigid himself. Anyway, Dana sets him straight, I think, with a massive round-up of the many, many fields of endeavour that depend ultimately on him publishing that blessed book.
The best bit, natch, is that our own humble contribution elicits exactly the correct response from the parallel Mr D. and gives Dana the opportunity to expound on the Tao of Science.
We’re chuffed. But there’s also lots of other good stuff there. I passed a few very pleasant minutes reading about mumps in Vancouver (maybe not your cup of tea) and Sterile Insect Release, and I have an agricultural question related to the latter: aside from screwworm and medfly, has it been used successfully on other agricultural insect pests?
Go. Read. Comment.
Nibbles: Seed hunter, Milk, Wine, Pollinators, Cacao, Berries
- Seed hunter hunts cash. Australians can watch on 21 October.
- Is selling milk retail really diversification? Alex thinks so.
- In vino variety. Jeremy sez: “Theft (of headline) is flattery”.
- Pollinator presence plummets. Luigi also sez: “Theft (of headline) is flattery”.
- Cacao Germplasm Evaluation and Characterization Project. Nuff said.
- Ribes redux.
A puzzle of African farming
I’m puzzled by a report on SciDev.net about last week’s 3rd African Green Revolution Conference in Norway. Two speakers told the conference that although new technologies have been developed that can increase yields, farmers are not adopting these technologies. The speakers said one reason is that there is no funding to promote these new technologies to farmers, and a Vice-President of AGRA told the conference that AGRA was spending US$50 million to fund a network of agro-dealers that will make the technologies available closer to the farmers and arrange for demonstrations.
Here’s the puzzle: is a network of agro-dealers really the solution? Or would an equal investment in extension services be a better use of the money? Countries tend to be neglecting extension right now, possibly because they are lured by technological solutions that are more glamorous than spreading best practices. What if there were a transnational service that put an army of barefoot extension workers into the countryside? Equip them with a bicycle and some communications technology. Give them access to one another’s experience and a global network of experts. Give them access, too, to those technological developments, if they think those are worthwhile. Maybe even give farmers vouchers that they can exchange for advice.
If the result is improved yields, stability, nutrition and all the rest of it, wouldn’t that be more sustainable than new technologies that — for whatever reason — languish on the shelf?
Another blog carnival for your delectation
Berry Go Round No. 8 is up at Not Exactly Rocket Science. This is “the carnival that celebrates the blogosphere’s coverage of all things botanical” and, very gratifyingly, there’s some faintly agricultural stuff there. Some of it we had already noted here, but one we hadn’t. Midoria has an introduction to Quercus serrata, konara in Japanese, an oak that is used as a substrate for shiitake mushrooms. Yum.