So there’s an Innovation for Biodiversity Photo Contest running over at Myoo Create, sponsored by National Geographic and UNEP. I voted for the picture of Svalbard, natch. Deadline for submitting entries is 30 May, for voting June 4.
Nibbles: Nuts, Ug99, Mexican pollinator project, Maize in Africa, Cerrado fruit
- Going nuts in Kyrgyzstan. Ok, sorry, that should read growing. And something similar from Brazil.
- And the bad Ug99 news just keeps on coming. When is wheat gonna catch a break?
- The Campesino a Campesino Pollinator Project. I just love that title.
- Study says “drought tolerant maize will greatly benefit African farmers.” Still no cure for cancer.
- Araticum, Buriti, Pequi, Cagaita, Gueroba, Babassu, Baru: Which one is the next kiwi?
Videos on genebanks set to go viral
Being very Web 2.0-savvy, our friends at the Crop Genebank Knowledge Base project have set up a YouTube channel. So now you can watch a couple of nice little videos on why genebanks are so important. And reflect on what really feeds people. Here’s a clue: it’s not genetic erosion numbers.
Peking presumably planning to plant potatoes
A short and barely comprehensible article in the People’s Daily Online alerts us to the fact that Beijing is to become a “seed-planting capital in the next few years,” on the back of its “currently reserved over 390,000 national-class germplasm resources, ranking second in the world.” Apart from what that means, I also wonder whether the planned planting programme will include potatoes, whose cultivation in China is apparently plagued by “inadequate germplasm resources for cultivar development, the lack of high quality seed potatoes” and various other problems.
Nibbles: Land lease, Maasai flexibility, Small farms, Coffee, coffee, coffee, Climate change, Sahelian trees, Food as drugs, Field genebanks, Chinese medicinals, Bolivian NTFP, Invasives
- Dinka men despise manual labour, hence “southern Sudan might soon be on the block for having a lot of its potential farm land leased to, and worked by, foreigners”.
- Maasai, on the other hand, “diversifying into cropping, by keeping fewer and faster growing animals and … taking on paying jobs”. Takes all sorts.
- What is a small farm? Depends.
- Coffee contains insecticides. Who knew?
- Global Coffee Quality Research Initiative (GCQRI) launched.
- Central America’s coffee lands to shrink under climate change, Reuters reports. Enough! I’ve got the shakes.
- Africa, meanwhile, needs technological innovations to cope.
- Domesticating baobab. You know it makes sense.
- Take two snacks in the morning and call me if you don’t feel any better.
- Climate change will affect Portuguese ex situ plant conservation sites too.
- “How best can communities conserve their medicinal plants?” A case study from China.
- Bolivia could make more of its Araceae and Bromeliaceae. Couldn’t we all?
- Are protected areas in Africa harbouring crop wild relatives? Just kidding: it’s invasives IUCN is talking about.