Category: Featured

The Phytophactor has advice for all:

Like I often say, when in doubt, ask a botanist.

Words to live by. Not that we’d call ourselves real botanists …

Anastasia says predictions of a food crisis in 2010 are built on sand:

[T]here are simply too many crop scientists and too many farmers who would notice if the numbers were off, so even if the USDA wanted to falsify the numbers, they couldn’t do it without being caught.

That’s the beauty of conspiracies; they don’t need reason.

Dirk Enneking has some advice for CIP on their new germplasm databases:

For an outsider there are several obstacles ie. too much choice, too many clicks with a mouse button, in order to get any real joy out of this rather obscure database (we all know potatoes are an important food, though).

What do you think?

B backs up the World Bank on traditional buildings.

In our region frequented by the storms (Philippines), there are many accounts of ONLY traditional bahay kubo (a hut made of the bamboo and palm fronds) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipa_hut surviving the most violent of storms.

And in other news, a correspondent confirms Luigi’s recollection that there is a coconut specifically for rope-making.

Niu Kafa … in Samoa. Kafa means rope.

Emmanuel’s supervisor, Glenn Hyman, has a problem with dietary diversification as an alternative to fortification.

But how would you target a diet diversity intervention? The problem here is that the populations most at risk of micronutrient deficiency are the ones that cannot afford diverse diets.

And he may have a point…