- American farming family gets tour of organic research farm and genebank in India, is impressed.
- The International Agricultural Show is on, just outside Paris. Pres. Sarkozy available for comment.
- A rapid run-through the history of chocolate, courtesy of Smithsonian.
Promoting underutilized plants
Are you going to the international symposium on “Underutilized plants for food, nutrition, income and sustainable development” in Arusha, Tanzania on 3-7 March? John Sowei certainly is, all the way from Papua New Guinea, to talk about sago. My old friends from the Pacific Lois Englberger (her Let’s Go Local activities in Pohnpei have featured regularly in these pages) and Mary Taylor are also presenting papers. And I believe another old friend, Hannah Jaenicke, is already in Arusha, helping with the organization. John, Lois, Mary, Hannah — or anyone else: do let us know if you’d like to blog the event for us.
Disease hotspots mapped
A letter in Nature this week looks at “Global trends in emerging infectious diseases.” ((Kate E. Jones, Nikkita G. Patel, Marc A. Levy, Adam Storeygard, Deborah Balk, John L. Gittleman & Peter Daszak. Nature 451, 990-993 (21 February 2008); doi:10.1038/nature06536.)) It includes some interesting maps, including these:
They show the global distribution of relative risk of an emerging infectious disease (EID) event caused by: (a) zoonotic pathogens from wildlife, (b) zoonotic pathogens from non-wildlife, (c) drug-resistant pathogens and (d) vector-borne pathogens. That’s based on climate, human population density and growth, and wildlife host species richness. Note in particular the map in the top right-hand corner: basically risk of zoonotic pathogens jumping to humans from livestock. Compare this livestock density ((FAO has more data on this.)):
Not a great match with density of domesticated animals. Maybe the correlation would be better with livestock diversity?
SBSTTA discusses agricultural biodiversity
The 13th meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the Convention on Biological Diversity has been meeting all week here in the FAO building in Rome. I only mention it because the agenda includes discussion of a review of implementation of the CBD’s programme of work on agricultural biodiversity. You can read about that discussion and various side events at UKabc and IISD. If you’re taking part and would like to share your thoughts and impressions, let us know. I did sit in on one session as an observer, but really, I have no idea what was going on.
Genebanks galore
Great to start the day with genebank stories. First, from Africa, two separate articles about the Ugandan genebank, one focusing on what’s going in and the other what’s coming out. And then, from India, a heart-warming story about saving the jackfruit.