Wired magazine does some great-looking graphics. And the latest, on how science will solve the food crisis, is no exception. As for the content, well, I’m not sure that the future of global farming is down to push-pull intercropping, remote sensing and data-driven rotation, but it’s good to see things other than new seeds and fertilizers being given a chance. And somebody should tell Wired there are more than three plant genebanks in the world.
Idiots or savants? Reality for small farmers is complex
There’s a prevailing meta-narrative in some circles that sees smallholder farmers, noble peasants, as all-knowing and all-wise. Just give them control over their resources, this story goes, and they’ll feed themselves, conserve their environment, produce a surplus for those who do not farm, and all will be well with the world.
There’s an equally prevalent counter-narrative that says that the reason poor farmers are poor is that they haven’t had access to the fruits of scientific research and technological developments. Sell them seeds and fertilizers and spiffy new crops and varieties and they’ll grow their way out of poverty.
Neither narrative is wholly true, nor wholly untrue, and seldom is that brought out as clearly as in a recent report on the Agence France Presse wire, about the plight of farmers in southern Ethiopia. Some bought into a get-rich-quick scheme, growing biofuels for an American-Israeli company. They are going hungry, and they are still poor. Others ignored the offer. They remain poor, but they do have food to eat.
For smallholder farmers, as for everyone else, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
It’s a complicated story, that’s for sure, and AFP does its best to provide a balanced view. More and more, though, I am becoming certain that the best way to improve food security and earnings is to reverse the neglect of thoughtful extension services, which can combine the best technological advances with the most useful local knowledge to come up with locally sensitive solutions.
Cassava rules
The IITA public awareness machine must be in overdrive, and it looks like it’s running on cassava. Today
- a cassava mosaic project got a namecheck in the Sunday Tribune,
- news of a newly released drought tolerant variety got picked up in African Science News Service, and
- a meeting on value addition got an article in the wonderfully-named Daily Triumph.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s about time cassava got the attention it deserves in Africa.
Honeybees no longer pampered on the Pampas
Ranching in South America tends to get a bad press because it is often associated with Amazonian deforestation, but of course there are vast swathes of the continent where it makes good environmental sense, as well as economic. ((For a discussion of the related question of the bad press that pastoralism gets, see this post in CABI’s blog, which coincidentally came out just a few hours after I posted this.)) The Pampas grasslands of Argentina are a case in point. The home of gaucho culture ((Which, incidentally, is not as homogeneous and predictable as one might think.)), the Pampas are undergoing drastic change. The soybean boom is not just having an effect on the livestock industry, but also, perhaps surprisingly, on honeymaking. Much smaller in value, no doubt, than either soybeans or livestock, but these are not times to pass up on diversification.
Nibbles: New Agriculturist, Sheep, Jatropha, Carrots
- All about potatoes.
- Mutant sheep to attack Australia.
- An Indian Jatropha genebank in the news. And a study to tell us where to collect more using some really cool software.
- The ‘Purple Dragon’ carrots are coming up in a variety of colours but mostly not purple.