Funding

March 11, 2016

Milking quinoa for livelihoods

We’ve been contacted by Alexander Wankel of Pachakuti Foods with news of an intriguing Kickstarter campaign. Pachakuti is…

…a social enterprise committed to sourcing rare Andean superfoods directly from farmers to create unique products for a healthier life and a better world. By finding markets for underutilized crops, we strive to support biodiversity while providing a fair income for Andean farmers.

The unique product that is the focus of the Kickstarter is, of all things, quinoa milk.

Pachakuti Foods is launching the first quinoa milk made with carefully selected native quinoa varieties that have a naturally milky flavor and texture. Made from some of the yummiest quinoa in Peru, our quinoa milk is richer and creamier than quinoa milk made from conventional quinoa that is currently on the market. It is 100% vegan, gluten free, and contains high quality proteins with all the essential amino acids that the body needs.

They’re about half-way to their goal, which is $15,000.

This Kickstarter campaign is our first opportunity to hit the ground running, both by helping us raise money as well as tell the story of why quinoa diversity is important.

quinoa milk

So help them out, if you’re so inclined. Or maybe point them to a bank that might be interested in giving them a business loan.

March 2, 2016March 2, 2016

Farmer-saved seeds are not fake

“Fake seeds” have been making the news in Uganda recently, on the back of a World Bank paper:

Of the many factors that keep small-scale Ugandan farmers poor, seed counterfeiting may be the least understood. Passing under the radar of the international development sector, a whole illegal industry has developed in Uganda, cheating farmers by selling them seeds that promise high yields but fail to germinate at all – with results that can be disastrous.

Counterfeiting gangs have learned to dye regular maize with the characteristic pinkish orange colour of industrially processed maize seed, duping farmers into paying good money for seed that just won’t grow. The result is a crisis of confidence in commercially available high-yield seed.

So it’s good to see one of the dozens of Youth Agripreneurs Project proposals being considered by GFAR tackling the issue.

Problem is, as Ola Westengen points out in a tweet, the project seems to be confused about what “fake” or “counterfeit” seeds are.

Is this project confusing "seeds from informal system" with "fake seeds"? Important dif. @AgroBioDiverse @GFARforum https://t.co/xnSdja17FZ

— Ola Westengen (@OlaWestengen) March 2, 2016

This from the project proposal:

…only 13% of farmers buy improved seed from formal markets in Uganda. The rest rely on seeds saved from the previous season or traded informally between neighbors, but such seeds generally produce far lower yields than genuine high yield hybrids… This problem can be addressed by empowering local seed businessmen or empowering the locals to produce their own seed through training.

So the “problem” is farmer-saved and -traded seed? That’s hardly addressing the havoc being wrought by Uganda’s seed counterfeiting gangs.

I’m all for helping farmers build their capacity in seed production, but there’s no reason why they should then produce nothing but “high yield hybrids.”

March 2, 2016

Nibbles: Craft beer, Citizen breeding, Botanical e-book, Horticultural bio-piracy, Pollinator reports, Rainforest Alliance map, Italian phytotron, YAP portfolio

Peak hops? Say it ain’t so.
Day-long plant-breeding-for-the-masses course at Oxford in April.
Botanists of the twenty-first century: Roles, challenges and opportunities. An e-book for the ages.
Genes to beans: polyploidy on a plate. A Royal Society lecture by Kathy Willis.
Some naughty people have been collecting plants in India without permits.
IPBES tells it like it is on pollinators. In a press release. You try to find the actual report online. Oh and here’s FAO getting in on the act. Though at least for this the report is easy to find.
Great interactive map of the work of the Rainforest Alliance. Check out the agriculture tab.
Italian researchers build a time machine. A phytotron, really, but let them have their little fun.
Speaking of fun, GCARD3 Youth Agripreneurs Projects on “Climate Resilient Indian Cattle” and “fake seeds.” Lots more too, all interesting.

February 12, 2016March 2, 2016

Proposals wanted to host Harlan III International Symposium on Domestication, Evolution, and Uses of Biological Diversity

The International Committee is seeking proposals to host Harlan III and requests that interested groups consider the above factors in preparing a prospectus for the symposium, giving special attention to the potential financial requirements and sources of funding. For consideration for a symposium to be held in 2017, the prospectus should be received at UC Davis by April 15, 2016.

The Harlan Symposium is a very prestigious, not to say blog-worthy, event, and I’m sure people will be falling over themselves to host it.

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016

Citrus is well-endowed

Givaudan, “a Swiss-based company that is the global leader in the creation of fragrances and flavors” has provided a $1 million endowment towards maintaining the Citrus Variety Collection at the University of California, Riverside. Both that collection and a famous tomato collection are owned and managed by the University of California, and affiliated with the USDA/ARS National Plant Germplasm System, which does not have the flexibility itself to explore unusual funding mechanisms. It’s not clear from the article in URC Today what the cool million buys exactly, but at least part of the proceeds must go on on the Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection Endowed Chair. And Tracy Kahn, curator of the collection, has just been appointed to it. But surely a $1 million endowment can’t cover all the costs of maintaining multiple trees of a thousand different citrus accessions? There must be other revenue streams. Interesting to speculate whether a similar model could cover the costs of a more global effort, such as is being proposed in a recent strategy document.