- Indigenous people take video evidence to Copenhagen. The big site. (Cool map.)
- Congratulations to Biofortified, winners of an interview with foodie god Michael Pollan (and $1500).
- What colour is a banana? Linguist understands diversity, everyone else fails.
- And an orange?
- Google rescued my potato harvest. Long, dull article about a short, sharp story.
Building on coconut
The World Bank’s Development Marketplace 2009 is continuing to feature stories from the winners on its web site. And that’s good because we can scan them as they come up and draw attention to those that involve agricultural biodiversity. Today’s pick, a project from Samoa to build traditional houses “as models of ‘safer, accessible, resilient, and sustainable housing'”.
What’s particularly nice about this is the idea that traditional Samoan houses depend absolutely on agricultural products like the coconut fibre rope that people use to lash the components together. Modern houses built from steel reinforced concrete and corrugated metal cannot withstand cyclones, and their materials become deadly flying objects during storms. Hence the “innovation” of rediscovering traditional methods and material. Might help conserve coconut diversity too, I suppose.
Oh, and in case you were wondering about more obvious, though no less traditional, things to do with coconuts, why not download Coconut Recipes, from Bioversity International and COGENT?
Nibbles: Climate change edition
- Climate change good for wild boar. And bores?
- Climate change good for English wine makers.
- Climate change bad for Africa. Already.
- Climate change bad for Nenets and their reindeer. Already.
- Organic farming will solve climate change.
- Ecotourism will solve climate change.
- China going crazy for garlic. Because of climate change? Nope, swine flu.
“It is silly to think of one solution”
Johan Schut pulled a folding knife from his hip pocket, inserted the tip into the base of a bright, crispy head of romaine lettuce and severed it in two.
“See there, the little brown specks with black legs?” He lifted one of the busy beasts onto the tip of his blade. “It’s a family of aphids. This is a non-resistant lettuce.”
Gotta love the New York Times ledes (as we ex-reptiles call them). This one certainly got me reading, and probably would have done even if I weren’t interested in “entrepreneurs and scientists [who] are trying to use all available techniques, including genetic modification, to improve agriculture around the world.”
It’s all there; cisgenesis, AFLP and MAS, arms races, private-public partnerships, options up the wazoo. Go Wageningen!
Nibbles: Climate, Money, Wine, Rice, Photosynthesis, Diversity
- Our friends at the Global Crop Diversity Trust have been busy:
- “Experts: Failure to focus on farming will undermine global climate agreement and increase hunger.” Er … what agreement?
- Oh, and we need more money, please.
- Tomorrow, US Congress briefed on soil microbiology and Vitis fermentation products, aka terroir.
- IRRI Boss wants to sequence all 109,000 rice accessions in genebank. Jeremy asks: “Then what?”
- Seeking C4 rice — and C3 sorghum. Good luck with that.
- Women grow food basket. In India.