The International Sorghum and Millet Collaborative Research Support Program (INTSORMIL) based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln “works to improve nutrition and natural resource management and to increase income in developing countries, while developing new technologies to improve sorghum and pearl millet production and its use worldwide.” CropBiotech Update recently announced that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has given INTSORMIL a grant of US$9 M to continue enabling “plant breeders from U.S. land-grant universities to work with researchers in host countries through education, mentoring and collaborative research.” Sounds very worthy, but I must admit I hadn’t heard of this outfit before.
You say you wanna revolution
An interesting juxtaposition of articles: from India, one of the cradles of the Green Revolution, the National Commission on Farmers (NCF) says that the government should now focus on “faces before figures” (net income of the farm families rather than tonnes of farm commodities produced), while from Africa, which was largely bypassed by said revolution, a call for a new, uniquely African Green Revolution with a focus on nutrition and the environment as well as markets and policies.
Peduncle power
Here’s a story about breeders’ efforts to perfect the jack-o’-lantern. A clue: it’s all in the peduncle. And there’s apparently no “gene-splicing” involved!
Fried purple tomatoes?
Would you eat a purple pizza? Breeders at Oregon State University are hoping you would, because they’re a couple of years away from releasing a purple tomato hybrid, the colour apparently coming from a wild relative. Read about it here. Supposed to be better for you too…
Market assisted selection
There’s a discussion of marker assisted selection (MAS) in, of all places, the Guardian. The writer, Jeremy Rifkin, tries to sell MAS as a consumer-friendly alternative to GM, but judging by some of the comments that is not going to be a universally successful strategy.