Category: Featured

Michael thinks Luigi has an overwrought imagination brought on by spending too much time watching cheesy movies:

CFFRC will add much research and training capacity to address and overcome production and use constraints of “underutilised crops”. Wouldn’t we all wish other governments would be as generous as Malaysia’s and, rather than just paying lip service, effectively support the diversification of agriculture through greater crop diversity? CFFRC and CFF are separate legal entities, but will closely coordinate their work. CFF has indeed a seat on CFFRC’s Board. CFF will continue to focus on its role as an information platform and international facilitator, but will be locally strengthened through the brain power and opportunities of a research center that is the largest of its kind (dedicated exclusively to “crops for the future”). Note that CFFRC will work under CFF’s direction and within its mandate, but it is a company under Malaysian law. CFFRC was officially launched this week by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, and if you are patient for another day or so and give us some breathing space after an exhausting Symposium we will properly report on the CFF website on recent developments.

Amen to that, congratulations to all concerned, and very best wishes for the future!

Hugh Harries has a bone to pick with some lines on a map:

…Sailing ships, like floating coconuts, go with winds and tides. The introduction of coconut into the Atlantic and Caribbean by the Portuguese was via the Cape Verde islands not the Gulf of Guinea and annually, for more than 200 years, the Spanish carried hundreds of people and thousands of coconuts from the Philippines to the west coat of America (from Mexico to Peru) by a north Pacific route avoiding any islands…

Paul has some doubts about the whole bag-of-seeds-on-a-Coke-can thing:

On the point of distributing diverse seed — surely one of the principles of seed diversity conservation is regional difference and capacity for local conservation — centralised distribution would almost limit diversity by definition. I recognise that you talk about how it would educate and encourage seed-saving behaviour, but it would have most relevance where these skills are already lost.

My own doubts centre more about how you manage the information. If there’s a Genebank Database Hell, surely this kind of thing would be its seventh circle? Anyway, Jacob does have a reply:

I think that “centralized distribution” doesn’t necessarily imply an untargeted approach.

Let the discussion continue!

Challenged to produce an agroforestry system that actually works, Ian Dawson shows no hesitation:

Sileshi et al. from the World Agroforestry Centre did a meta-analysis of the impacts of green fertilisers on maize production in Africa. It shows benefits.

Phew!

Ann Rafalko, Director of Online Content at the NY Botanical Garden sets us right on their Family Garden, Edible Garden etc.:

Actually, the Family Garden turned 20 years old this year. The new thing that’s happening at the Family Garden this year is we’re doing Edible Garden-style cooking demonstrations at the Family Garden for the kids.

We admit it, we could have done with a bit more research on this one.