Category: Featured

Natalia, who runs a mobile phone service, could plug a gap:

We have a database of farmers all across Kenya – we know they location, what they grow and size of the farm. At the moment we have a database of 30.000 farmers, but plan to expand up to 100 k in the next few months. We are searching for the way to commercialise this data source.

And there’s the rub. Advertisers may wish to pay for that list, but would the farmers really benefit? Alas, for the purposes of building a public good, like a better distribution map, no-one is likely to stump up. But Natalia, just think of the goodwill your company could derive if you shared the data, suitably anonymized!

Orchidgrowinman asks some interesting questions about dietary diversity. Among them:

If I added a bit of chopped grass (or cactus, or Capsicum leaves or acacia leaves…) to my polished-rice diet, could I reduce vitamin deficiencies? Could I persuade other people to do likewise?

Social engineering certainly helps — people copy people they admire. Essentially, the answer is yes.

We recently Nibbled a request for information sources of seeds of heirloom tomatoes. That apparently galvanized MikeH into action:

You said: Do you have these heirloom tomatoes? I said: Nope, not this year but I’ll bet I know where they are.

The result? Satisfaction all round.

Ain’t it great when A gets connected to F quickly and seamlessly through B, C, D, and E who are only intermediaries?

That’s what social networking is for, I guess.

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Rahul Goswami sets Jeremy straight on mini-mills for the women of Wayanad:

Remember this is Kerala state, with hyperactive trade unions and a fully outfitted leftist government. So the grain pounders would either have to carry a lot of weight in their ‘panchayat’ (village council) or be politically well connected enough to neutralise the enormous labour implications. Besides, rural Kerala society is surprisingly patriarchal (there’s a complex left-gender struggle). So a mini-mill may be good for a discussion, as long as it stays a discussion.

Mike Listman revives the discussion on Pawnee corn:

A colleague at CIMMYT has suggested a possible linkage with Mexican native maize varieties, more of the tropical rather than temperate corn belt type (possibly why the Pawnee materials might not have prospered at Oklahoma day-lengths…) You could possibly confirm the Aztec-Pawnee linkage through a quick comparative assay of the Pawnee language and Nahuatl, focusing on vocabulary for everyday objects and activities (obviously, those that would have existed in pre-Colombian times).