- Yet another USDA genebank in the news. This time it’s maize.
- G20 Agriculture vice-ministers recommend to “Support the development and promotion of a global information sharing system on plant and animal genetic resources.”
- Bison returns to Germany.
- Learn population genomics of crops and livestock.
- Ebony is a pretty old word.
- How Salvia got around.
Nibbles: Yams, Wild relatives, Plant breeding, Bamboo, Funding, Leaves, Red rice, Rice breeder, Governance and poverty
- Yams heading for trouble. What to do?
- Learn something from wild relatives, like they’re doing with tomatoes?
- Go for a totally new plant breeding paradigm?
- I know, let’s all go out and celebrate World Bamboo Day!
- Switzerland gives Laos US$6.3m in support of government’s agrobiodiversity initiative.
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation gives Growing Power US$5m in support of Growing Power’s urban agriculture efforts.
- National Geographic gives leaves a good going-over without mentioning agriculture.
- Farmers in Kerala give Navara red rice as a reason for good health and prosperity.
- World gives Monty Jones, rice breeder, high status.
- Paul Collier fan gives African governance the blame for low agricultural productivity.
Nibbles: Deforestation, Mayan collapse, Agroforestry, One Acre Fund, School gardens
- Cutting down forests worsened ancient Mayan droughts.
- And (among other things) did for the Maya.
- And despite the Mayan end of the world being near, the French are revitalising agroforestry.
- The Financial Times wrote about One Acre Fund’s work to reduce agrobiodiversity in Kenya, then put it behind a paywall (for me). So One Acre Fund sprung it.
- School gardens continue to flourish in some places.
The CGIAR reform explained
Frank Rijsberman, CEO of the CGIAR Consortium, gave a seminar at IFPRI yesterday on the topic of the CGIAR reform. You can watch it below, but if you want to see the slides properly, you’ll have to go somewhere else. I wonder if there’s a way to intercut the video with still shots of the slides.
You may be intrigued by the statement that the CGIAR now has “15 (+1) programs.” The details are on the CGIAR Consortium and CGIAR Fund websites, though, confusingly, you get different sorts of details in the two places. Anyway, the research portfolio is perhaps most succinctly summarized here. The 15 things Dr Rijsberman referred to are the so-called CGIAR Research Programs (CRP). The “(+1)” refers to the “Long Term Support of CGIAR Genebanks,” ((I think.)) which is somewhat different, being described as a “CRP Research Support Program.” I’m not sure that it’s entirely appropriate to relegate what are often described as the crown jewels of the CGIAR system to a bracketed addendum, but we shouldn’t quibble. It’s certainly very good to see some of the world’s most important genebanks properly taken care of.