Luigi Guarino

May 23, 2007

Sweetleaf hits India

I’m always somewhat ambivalent about the kind of story I saw today on Kangla Online about how some farmers in Senaputi district in north-eastern India are taking up the cultivation of Stevia. This is a South American herb in the Asteraceae which is widely cultivated around the world as the source of an alternative to artificial sweeteners.

On the one hand, it is always good to see farmers diversifying and experimenting, including with exotic crops. On the other, you wonder whether there isn’t a local – and locally used – species that might have been promoted and commercialized in this way. And will the money farmers raise from Stevia be sufficient to buy them and their families the nutritious food they will no longer be growing on their land?

May 22, 2007May 25, 2007

People power

Here’s another potpourri, this one centred on local people’s perceptions of agricultural biodiversity. From the journal Livestock Science comes a paper looking at how traditional livestock keepers in Uganda select breeding bulls and cows among Ankole longhorn cattle. Another paper, this one from Crop Protection, discusses how Ethiopian farmers rank sorghum varieties with regard to their resistance to storage pests, and indeed what they do about such pests. And finally, from The Hindu newspaper, news of an initiative, to be launched on the International Day for Biological Diversity by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, for a “people’s movement” to “prepare a database of all living organisms and traditional knowledge systems” in Kerala. The initiative is part of the state’s draft biodiversity strategy and action plan, which apparently includes consideration of agricultural biodiversity.

May 22, 2007May 22, 2007

African hope

It is all too easy to concentrate on the bad news out of Africa, so for a change on Biodiversity Day I’d like to point to three feel-good stories about how Africans are using biodiversity to make better lives for themselves. Via Timbuktu Chronicles come pieces on traditional medicine in Mali and local leafy greens in Kenya and Tanzania. And there’s also a World Vision report out today on how farmers in Tanzania are turning to an unusual crop.

May 19, 2007May 19, 2007

Fermenting revolution

Sandor Katz wrote a classic book a few years back about the history and practice of fermentation as a technique for preparing, enhancing and preserving food. Catch an interview with him at Grist. Let’s not forget that agricultural biodiversity includes that pesky microflora.

May 19, 2007May 19, 2007

Dietary diversification for teachers

I guess it’s a bit old, but I was impressed by an FAO manual for teachers of agriculture, food and nutrition in Africa, in particular its chapter on diversity in diets. The message on agricultural biodiversity and its role in healthy diets has to start going out as early as possible.