Breeding

September 2, 2010September 2, 2010

Talking about an African Green Revolution

The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) focuses on promoting investments and policy support for driving agricultural productivity and income growth for African farmers in an environmentally sustainable way. The Forum, which stems from the African Green Revolution Conference in Oslo, is a private-sector led initiative which will bring together African heads of state, ministers, farmers, private agribusiness firms, financial institutions, NGOs, civil society and scientists, to discuss and develop concrete investment plans for achieving the green revolution in Africa.

It’s going on right now, and it’s getting the full social networking treatment. If you want to share corridor gossip, you know where to find us.

LATER: By the way, AGRA, one of the organizers, has also just started a blog.

August 31, 2010August 31, 2010

Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Maize, Papaver somniferum, Organics, Zulu gardens, Feasts, Female farmers, Transhumance, Dogs

Bioversity International and UNEP jointly pile on the pressure to preserve Pavlovsk …
… as do plant professors from University of Wisonsin.
Mexican maize farmers using CIMMYT genebank materials to adapt their varieties. Why not in Africa, then?
High praise for a novel on opium.
Mat Kinase takes Time to task over lacklustre organics article.
King Goodwill Zwelithini calls for One Home One Garden campaign to support food-growing and nutrition.
Feasts predate agriculture. Well, yeah.
Female farmers … a bloke writes.
Great pic on the joys of modern transhumance.
Resurrecting the Maize King. And why not?
More than anyone has a right to know about dogs in the ancient world.

August 27, 2010August 27, 2010

Nibbles: Biotech to the rescue, Chinese horses, Soybean carotenoids, CropMobs, Nutrition, Coffee pests, Varroa, Berries, NUS

Genejockeys say they have sorted that global food supply problem everybody’s been so antsy about lately. No, wait, maybe it’s this.
China has 23 indigenous horse breeds. At least.
Latest crop to get the orange treatment is soybean.
Diverse ways of doing agriculture: Could CropMobs go global?
Choose foods, not nutrients. Heck, yes.
Globally warmed beetles threatening your coffee crops? Bring on biodiversity!
Brit breeds bees for better grooming.
How to get the most out of your wild blueberries. Maybe we should tell Medvedev?
Emerging Crops is a new NUS project, and it has a website.

August 26, 2010August 26, 2010

Nibbles: CIFOR, Weeds, Camelids, Drought, Biofortification, Buckwheat

CIFOR has a blog!
Nice series of videos on eating weeds.
Video on Peru’s “Andean rodeo.” You heard me.
Africa needs drought-tolerant maize. Ok, fair enough, but here’s my question. Shouldn’t they have done this study before doing all that breeding? Oh, who knows, maybe they did.
“Biofortification will thus remain relevant to poor rural populations in the years to come, as their incomes will still be far too low to afford a more diversified diet.” What? Who says a diversified diet need be expensive?
Russia faces looming buckwheat crisis. At least the genetic resources are safe in the Vavilov Institute. Unless of course somebody decides to, I don’t know, build luxury villas there, or something.

August 24, 2010August 24, 2010

Nibbles: Eggplant, Cactus domestication, Berries, Conservation, Drought, Conference, Chaffey, Rice relative, Cornus, Adansonia, Pavlovsk, Genebanks, Dams

How can you do Eggplant’s Rich History and not wonder why this generally huge, generally purple thing is called an eggplant?
Domestication of the Gray Ghost Organ Pipe cactus; exceedingly complex. Oh and there’s a cool photo here.
How berries protect the brain from age-related malfunction. Are you listening, Dmitry?
Protect medicinal plants, says letter-writer.
The world doesn’t understand drought tolerance, says another letter-writer.
Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica conference.
Chaffey’s Plant Cuttings from Annals of Botany. Must-read stuff.
A wild relative contributes trait for early morning flowering to rice, allowing it to escape sterility induced by high temperatures.
The Cornelian Cherry and the Baobab explained.
Voice of America devotes Special English report to Pavlovsk. If that ain’t viral, what is?
Genebanks on a roll in China. In Australia, not so much.
Dam dataset online. Let the mashups proliferate.