- Setting up a network of high potato diversity sites for in situ conservation. It has a Facebook page, so “Like” it.
- Some of that diversity will no doubt find its way to Lima’s markets.
- If not, Leaping and Learning will tell you how. And why.
- There’s a lot of diversity in genebanks too, of course. And thank goodness for that!
- Potatoes are important in Africa too.
- And Japan. But do they go with eels?
- What are potatoes like for micronutrients? Probably better than you think. But could be better?
- If not, you can always pickle them. Can’t you?
Nibbles: Global health journal, Agroecology, Sachs & the MVP, British trees survey, Tunisian pear disease, Obama & biofuels, Seed Savers, Chaffey, Indian phenotyping
- The Lancet goes open source. Well, kinda.
- Alt-World Food Prize winners. None of whom are at the Conference on Agroecology for Sustainable Food Systems in Europe: A Transformative Agenda, though.
- I guess there’s no chance of Jeffrey Sachs landing the actual World Food Prize. Well, you never know.
- If you’re in Britain and you get the urge to measure a tree, now you can share your results.
- Maybe the Tunisians should do something similar, at least for their pears, before it’s too late.
- “The plan notes biofuels have an important role to play in increasing our energy security, fostering rural economic development and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.” Riiiight.
- “We started doing this before heirlooms were fashionable. We knew in our hearts it was the right thing to do.”
- Quite a bit of agrobiodiversity in the latest Plant Cuttings.
- India goes in for high throughput phenotyping for drought tolerance.
Nibbles: Assam and CC, China ag landscape, Breeding for CC, Patenting pros & cons, Quinoa sustainability, Nordic cheeses, Italian endangered breeds
- Rethinking rice-based agriculture in Assam.
- And China, maybe?
- By breeding your way out of the problem, maybe?
- And then patenting the result? Well, maybe not.
- Here comes fair-trade quinoa.
- Nordic cheeses to go with those insects from a few days back. Lack of Norwegian representation pointed out, as well as a remedy.
- I wonder how many Italian cheeses are made from the milk of endangered breeds. Well, now the relevant association has a Facebook page, so I can ask them.
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
- Brazil’s flora moves online. And its agriculture into its favelas.
- Taxonomy 101.
- Wish the people who wrote this press release on “canary seed” had taken a taxonomy course. It’s Phalaris canariensis, it turns out.
- African breeders to be trained at UCDavis. Ok, but what about WACCI? What’s going on? Cornell-Davis smackdown?
- Further proof, if any were needed, of the importance of wild bees.
- Tajikistan gets its first World Heritage Site. Includes most of the Pamirs, so surely a whole lot of agricultural biodiversity, both wild and cultivated, plant and animal. Not that that was the prime mover for protection, probably.
- Incidentally, there’s a list of World Heritage Sites in danger, and it includes Rennell Island in the Solomons. The reason I bring it up is that it is famous for a local coconut variety. Hope that’s not endangered!
- Nordic Food Lab gets money to experiment with cooking insects.
- Belize TV looks to agrobiodiversity to cope with climate change.
Plant breeding as a public good. Again.
Back in February 2012 we were happy to spread the word about the first Student Organic Seed Symposium, in Vermont in the US. We heard no more about it, of course. 1 Such is our institutional memory, however, that an official report on the meeting, in a proper journal no less, caught our eye and demanded to be shared.
It’s an interesting read, and full of hope. There is clearly a demand for breeding to meet the needs of not just organic but other sorts of what might be called “proper” farming. 2 And there are young professionals who want to meet those demands. The tricky part is how to make it pay. From the brief details in the report, it seems that US government funding and private philanthropy are helping to train breeders and support specific breeding programmes, a return to plant breeding as a public good. Will that be enough?