- CIMMYT pushes its newly-bred water-efficient maize in Africa.
- AGRA not mentioned in the above but surely they were involved? If only in the extension part.
- African universities also not mentioned, but probably less likely to have been involved. Alas.
- Register for the next class of the European Plant Breeding Academy, which starts in October 2015. Not at an African university. At a US university.
- ICRISAT pivots towards millets. Will probably involve breeding. And maybe universities.
- As for genebanks, I’ve given up expecting namechecks in any of the above.
Nibbles: Seeds app, Ruminant breeding, Minor crops, Forage grass, Cereals scholarships, Tasty sweetpotatoes
- Choose the right seeds. For Kenya.
- Cross the right goats. In Kenya.
- Eat the right underutilized crops. In Kenya.
- Grow the right Brachiaria. In Kenya.
- Pick the right people. From Kenya.
- Breed the right, i.e. tasty, sweetpotatoes. In Kenya. And elsewhere, admittedly.
Nibbles: Seed access, Funding genebanks, Vote for me dammit, Quality AND yield, Floating gardens, Chocography, Wine heritage double, Uzbeki bread
- African Seed Access Index comes out for Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
- New way to fund crop diversity conservation to be unveiled at FFD3 in Addis Ababa next week.
- “When you looked for ‘Ethiopia’ in a dictionary, it would also always mention ‘famine’. Now that time is over.”
- Vote for me!!!! I so want to win this damn Bioversity photo competition.
- Yes, you can have your long-grain rice and yield too!
- Everybody loves floating gardens.
- Mapping chocolate.
- “Why Is there Wine on the UNESCO World Heritage List?” Why the hell not?
- Lost grapes in Shangri-La. UNESCO beckons?
- Flatbreads rule.
World Bank plays hardball with agricultural research, maybe
…the future of the institution responsible for the Green Revolution – a consortium of 15 research centers around the world called the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) — is under threat. The World Bank, one of its primary funders, is considering withdrawing its financial support.
Well, thank goodness the genebanks at least are safe, eh?
For the CGIAR, the proposed cuts, though painful, would not be devastating; in 2013, the group spent $984 million to fund its activities… Still, the World Bank — the preeminent global development institution — is essentially declaring that agricultural research is not a development priority.
No word from CGIAR. Yet. But then again, adapting agriculture is not that big a deal, is it? Well, Mark Cackler is manager for agriculture and food security at the World Bank, and he seems to think it may be, and that CGIAR have it more or less right:
The Copenhagen Consensus concludes that agricultural research is one of the single most effective investments we could make to fight malnourishment. Therefore, we need more support for bodies like the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research that focus on crops and cropping systems that are of greatest importance to poor farmers and poor countries. Such research is a global public good that the private sector cannot be expected to deliver alone.
What in tarnation is going on at the World Bank?
Nibbles: Monocultures redux, Seedless watermelons, Red kiwifruit, Herbaria problems, Forest foods, Sorghum beer, SIRGEALC, Chinese veggies, Organic tomatoes, Andean women, Rise origins, Fermentation
- Deploy your cover crop diversity in time rather than space. But deploy it.
- Triploid goodness.
- Searching for a red kiwi.
- Herbaria on the rack.
- Let them eat non-timber forest products.
- Sorghum spurts in Kenya. Because beer.
- Sign up for SIRGEALC 10.
- Knowing your 菠菜 from your 西洋菜.
- 400 tomato varieties. No pesticides. No water. No problem.
- Women are conserving Andean crops. Sure, though with some occasional help from genebanks.
- The Rice Origins Wars continue.
- Sauerkraut changed the world.