Author: Luigi Guarino

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Nibbles: Brazil flora & urban ag, Telling species apart, Canary seed for humans, Training breeders, Solitary bees, Tajik protected area, Rennell Island, Nordic grubs, Belize TV

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Nibbles: Mapping by phone, Samoan greens, Rice podcast, Juniper threat, Wild yams, Food book, Coconut conservation

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Where exactly is that zeitgeist?

Something is up, Jeremy said a couple of days ago, by way of introduction to a pair of pieces which he suggested, tongue no doubt at least partly in cheek, showed “the zeitgeist firmly embracing the idea of agricultural biodiversity, preferably ancient agricultural biodiversity, as a suitable response to climate change.”

Well, if something was up, it is now firmly down, and as for the zeitgeist, its name is biotech. Because yesterday some of the masterminds behind GM won the World Food Prize. And, probably not coincidentally, the Rt Hon Owen Paterson, UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, gave a speech to Rothamsted Research which ended with this rousing call:

GM isn’t necessarily about making life easier for farmers or making their businesses more profitable, although I believe that there are great opportunities for the industry. It’s about finding non-chemical solutions to pests and diseases. It’s about fortifying food with vitamin A so that children in the poorest countries don’t go blind or die. It’s about making crops durable enough to survive sustained drought. It’s about developing new medicines. It’s about feeding families in some of the poorest parts of the world. We cannot expect to feed tomorrow’s population with yesterday’s agriculture. We have to use every tool at our disposal.

Meanwhile, the search for that elusive middle ground, in which every tool at our disposal is not only used, but gets an equal chance to be honed and oiled, continues.

LATER: How would you facilitate a truly constructive debate about that middle ground? Here’s how NOT to do it:

Setting up a debate that is framed around risk, rather than food politics, focused on a single subset of technology, rather than one that explores all the options, structured around science in an area where questions about outcomes are impossible to answer with certainty, about a technology that has unclear benefits to the public and the developing world but very obvious benefits to large firms that the public distrusts (partly because of their unclear relationships to politicians), seems to me at least like a waste of taxpayers’ money.

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Nibbles: Dog genome, Ancient beer, Ancient bread video, Breadfruit funding, Chilean plum yew, Quinoa at FAO, Nutrition & ag, USAID policy, Tea diversity

  • Dog domestication explained. In a bunch of different, mutually incompatible ways, but what the hell.
  • But don’t worry about that, revel in this ancient beer infographic. Ancient beer, not ancient infographic. And more: can never have enough about ancient beer.
  • And speaking of ancient foodstuffs, how about bread? Jeremy unavailable for comment.
  • Bread too mainstream? Why not support breadfruit planting for food security? You can. But make sure you tell them to plant lots of different varieties.
  • Or how about the Chilean plum yew tree, for that matter.
  • Breadfruit and Chilean plum yew tree not mainstream enough? FAO not losing faith with good old quinoa. Oh no siree. There’s even a series of tasting events here this week.
  • You want more nutrition, I’ve got more nutrition: here’s how to improve nutrition through agriculture in 10 easy steps, and here’s how we’re doing in monitoring how well we’re doing in improving nutrition through agriculture.
  • Which is comprehensively ignored by USAID’s new Biodiversity Policy. Agriculture, that is. USAID handles support to the CGIAR, so they should know about agrobiodiversity and its conservation. Not really good enough. But hey, you can send in your comments.
  • Nice pics of how people drink tea around the world. Could do with some myself just now actually, after that little lot…