- Up to their knees in wasabi. And, loving it.
- iPlant Collaborative’s Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) ver. 3.0 expands its coverage.
- Marine bird e-Atlas goes live. Meah.
- GFAR tweets about old videos. Must be a reason for it.
- Podcast on using sweet potatoes in baby food. Might well come in useful more generally.
- My friend Valerie and former employer SPC get a namecheck in story about world’s largest taro genebank.
If I had a $ for every key to feeding the world…
…I’d have about enough for a pizza in Rome.
Theme of World Food Day is agricultural cooperatives. Today's "key to feeding the world." If I had a $ for every key… http://t.co/F58eEs9z
— AgroBioDiverse (@AgroBioDiverse) October 16, 2012
Having presented a hostage to fortune with this recent tweet, I thought I’d better check how many things have actually been put forward as keys to feeding the world. Unsurprisingly on this particular World Food Day, the most common answer is indeed agricultural cooperatives, but ranging into the nether regions of a Google search throws up the following eclectic, but alas short, list:
Crop quality
Integrated Pest Management
Biotechnology
Diets and nutrition
Russia’s small-scale organic agriculture model (sic)
Modern agriculture
Peasants
Trying variants such as “key to agricultural development”, “agricultural production” and “agricultural sustainability” broadens the range to include some old favourites, such as perennial crops, little-known crops, ICTs, research/extension and policy; even biodiversity finally makes an appearance. But perhaps the most interesting result is that only a very few items appear on more than one of these lists: farmers’ organizations, biotechnology and girls/women.
Anyway, it’s World Food Day, and you can get involved!
Nibbles: Animal abolitionism and not, Patents and not, Early agriculture, Brogdale, Soybean genes, Fancy phenotyping, Nexus principles, ICRAF databases, Transformation, Pest posters
- Animal domestication is murder. Will someone tell ILRI? And the Maasai.
- Indian home remedies at risk from nasty patents. I guess someone has been reading the Washington Post.
- Agriculture started as a response to the need for large amounts of beer for feasts. Can’t think of a better reason. All the more weird that it seemed to go pear-shaped in Britain, then, after a good start. Maybe everybody was drunk?
- The UK’s National Fruit Collection in the spotlight. So after that dodgy period, British agriculture did manage to get a grip, thank goodness. Probably for the cider.
- Multiple copies of a gene needed for nematode resistance in soybeans.
- PETting plants.
- “Ten principles to apply at the nexus of agriculture, conservation, and other land uses.” And almost anything else for that matter.
- Those ICRAF spatial databases explained.
- Bhoo Chetana in India and, admittedly under another name, in Peru. Transformation often means reviving old ways.
- Free posters of Top 10 plant-attacking nasties.
Saving rice from a truant monsoon
Forsaken by the rain gods, the tribal farmers in the district are now mounting a desperate attempt to salvage their wilting crop. What is at stake is not only their livelihood, but also the preservation of over a dozen rare and invaluable indigenous varieties of rice. If the attempt by these farmers doesn’t succeed, the state could lose many rice varieties for ever…
“These tribal farmers have been the sole saviours of the seeds of many indigenous and rare varieties of rice. They have been cultivating and saving them religiously despite suffering losses as these varieties have only half the yield when compared to hybrid ones…”
Well, maybe. But Jeerakashala, Navara, Adukkan, Thondi and Chomala are in fact in IRRI’s genebank, according to Genesys.
Brainfood: Resistances, Seed networks, Medicinal plant protection, Pollinator knowledge gaps
- Indirect Effect of a Transgenic Wheat on Aphids through Enhanced Powdery Mildew Resistance. Plants resistant to fungus have more aphids. Oh dear.
- A case study of seed exchange networks and gene flow for barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare) in Morocco. There is more movement of material among villages than interviews suggest.
- Evaluation of plant-derived products against pests and diseases of medicinal plants: A review. Extracts from some medicinal plants used to protect other medicinal plants.
- Identifying key knowledge needs for evidence-based conservation of wild insect pollinators: a collaborative cross-sectoral exercise. Top one: How important is the diversity of pollinator species to the resilience and reliability of the pollination service? Seems a pretty good start.