As in many other (most?) walks of life, there is much that professional breeders can learn from “amateurs” (i.e., farmers), and vice versa. The experience of the taro breeders’ club in Samoa is a good example of that. Danny has already blogged for us about this. There are also examples of livestock (and pet) breeders’ clubs, and plenty of them according to Google. Many more than for crops, it looks to me. I don’t know much about such livestock clubs, and would welcome more information on how successful they have been, and whether we who are more into crops can learn anything from their experience. Anyway, there’s a great discussion of the advantages of the club approach to breeding crops for pest resistance in a downloadable recent 1995 IDRC publication. It’s accompanied by a list of crops best avoided by clubs, though the Evil Fruit Lord begs to differ.
Nibbles: Sprouts, Mice, Prices, Prices, Prices, Prices, Gooseberry, Fruits, Fruits, Subsidies, Climate change, Fruits again, Culture, Irrigation
- Brussels sprout variety lost and found in Wales. Alas, it’s an F1. Start breeding now.
- Mice destroying Australian sorghum. Pied Piper unavailable for comment.
- Impact of prices in Ethiopia.
- Impact of prices in Kenya.
- Impact of prices in Latin America.
- Biofuels not to blame for food price rises. Fatuous, Jeremy comments.
- Uttar Pradesh State Biodiversity Board steps in to save rare Indian gooseberry. Is this it? Doesn’t seem rare.
- Pitaya explained. Check out the links too.
- “Picture it, an orange grape!” No thanks.
- The Economist on the CAP. Money quote: …if Europeans want to produce food in a special region or way, “let them label it, and see if the market will pay for it.â€
- Speaking of which. British wine industry in trouble. You heard me.
- Other fruits not doing well either. Via.
- Royal Ploughing Ceremony goes well in Cambodia. That’s all right then.
- On the other hand, there may be something to this traditional knowledge stuff after all.
Nibbles: Transport, Sustainability, Breeding, Fruits
- Transport infrastructure needs diversity too.
- The cases against organics and for GMOs. Deal with it.
- [T]he flower looks like an anemic canary spit out by a cat. Deal with it.
- The mapood is becoming rare in Thailand. Deal with it.
Nibbles: Tangled Bank, Banana, Films, Biofuels, DOC
- Tangled Bank 105 is up. Ag-related: safe fugu bred, and canine genetics. Down boy.
- Gene Expression blogs Banana (the book). Interesting comments too.
- Indian women make films to protect biodiversity. P’raps they’ll enter our next competition?
- US to scale back corn-for-booze subsidy by whopping 12%?
- Sardinian saffron to be protected.
Nibbles: Drugs, Cotton, Localsource, Bees, Sunflowers
- Insights into Dutch cannabis breeding. Dude unavailable for comment.
- Cotton diversity link-fest.
- Head of World Food Programme on buying locally.
- US bee health: not good. Via.
- Australian sunflowers to improve US varieties; Luigi more confused than ever.