Are supermarkets good or bad for farmers? Indians not sure.
Greek fires
Are the tragic fires in Greece threatening crop wild relatives too?
Animal genetic resources conference
The First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is on at Interlaken, Switzerland. Earth Negotiations Bulletin is providing daily reports. The first official press release is also out. Are you there? Would you like to tell us what is going on? Drop us a line.
Genebanks in the news
Are genebanks becoming sexy or something? In the past few days there have been:
- a VOA News piece on the USDA-ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit at the Geneva, NY campus of Cornell University, focusing on their world-famous apple collection;
- an article in Farm & Ranch Guide on the USDA’s Small Grains Collection at the University of Idaho’s Research and Extension Center at Aberdeed; and
- an article in Kauai Garden Island News on how to prepare breadfruit which resulted from a cook-off at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens, home of the world’s largest breadfruit collection.
Amidst all the recent media frenzy about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, it is good to see “normal” genebanks also featured in the news every once in a while.
Native potato marketing wins prize
It never rains but it pours. Peter Ballantyne from AgInfo News has sent us information on another attempt to forge “intelligent markets” linking small rural producers with urban consumers. T’ikapapa, “which packs and markets specially selected Peruvian native potatoes,” has just won a SEED Award. It is part of the Papa Andina Project coordinated by CIP and funded by Swiss Development Cooperation. The SEED initiative is Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development.