Category: Featured

Andrew has a question for the U. of Warwick, and will be writing a strongly worded letter to Britain’s new Prime Minister if he doesn’t get the right answer:

Is the Genetic Resources Unit to be rehoused under the Department of Life Sciences in a new state of the art facility to increase storage capacity to meet the increasing demand to ex situ conserved plant genetic resources (crops, landraces, wild crop relatives) or are seeds and germplasm to be dumped in the department’s basement with little care for its socio-economic and money making value with the addition to jobs being axed in a research area, which struggles to find adequate funding?

Susan MacMillan adds more arrows to the quiver of dietary diversification:

Let’s not forget another important if traditional weapon in our arsenal — animal agriculture, which provides poor households with modest quantities of milk and meat, which help human bodies make better use of the staples they consume, as well as help farmers not only make regular incomes but also make more efficient, sustainable and productive use of their croplands and farming systems. Indeed, the oldest staple of all may be not grains but diversification itself.

Eliseu is upset about the rumoured closure of the UK vegetable genebank at Wellesbourne:

I couldn’t disagree more with Luigi’s comment. No, don’t let it close. … A genebank is a lot more than a seed store and some people should know better!!!

He goes on to hoist Gorden Brown with a reminder of what he said on 21 April 2006: “Environmental sustainability is not an option, it is a requirement.” Fine words … I got some parsnips here.

Rhizowen offers Rome’s garden guerillas a choice target:

I’ve always felt that the Terme di Caracalla were missing something. Sunflowers.

A little too far away to look after them, but you never know …

Luis R. Aguilar congratulates his friend Humberto Rios Labrada of Cuba on winning the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Me gustaria felicitar a todos los ganadores de este importante premio en especial al Dr Humberto Rios Labrada por la modestia y sencillez que lo ha caracterizado a travez de toda su vida. Tengo el inmenso honor de figurar entre sus amigos intimos y por eso resalto sus caracteristicas personales independientemente del extraordinario talento que posee como cientifico y para lidiar con la envidia y la mezquindad de algunos mediocres colegas.

And we join him in that happy task.