- Learn about CIAT’s reseach via the posters they put on slideshare. Couple on their beans and cassava genebank.
- Trying to speed up apple breeding.
- Biodiversity interventions find it difficult to fight poverty. How about agrobiodiversity interventions?
- More bad news: protected areas don’t work anyway. At least for trees in Burkina Faso.
- Boffins trying to spot contraband honey. There’s contraband honey?
- Gin drinkers told to start worrying.
- Forest of Belfast project to wind up, but not before finding really old oak.
Trouble in St Petersburg
Russian Ministry of Economic Development adopts resolutions destroying the European largest field genebank and replacing it with commercial cottages.
That’s quite a title. It refers to the Vavilov Institute’s Pavlovsk Experiment Station.
The Station was organised in 1926 near St. Petersburg. Being one of the major stations of VIR, it studies perennial grasses and cruciferous tubers cultivated in the Non-Black-Soil area. There are over 3000 accessions of fruit and berry plants maintained in vivo in its gardens. More than 40 of these fruit samples have been commercialized. This station operates an experiment farm, a quarantine nursery and greenhouses.
The article itself piles on the pain. The staff are doing what they can. Strongly worded letters have apparently been written:
The administration of the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) and the staff of Pavlovsk Experiment Station have forwarded open letters to the President of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev and the Prime Minister V.V. Putin seeking their support in shielding the world’s heritage against irresponsible acts of certain Russian functionaries.
Our feelers are out. We’ll keep you posted.
Nibbles: Microlivestock, Urban ag, Ag info, School meals in Peru, Agrobiodiversity indicators, Nature special supplement, Extension, Breeding organic, Forgetting fish in China, Deforestation, Russian potatoes, Fijian traditional knowledge, Megaprogrammes
- FAO slideshow on Egyptian rabbits.
- Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development calls for papers on urban agriculture. Will some look at the intersection with art?
- And IAALD re-launches its journal.
- “…students receiving online encouragement from the national soccer star reported going to bed at night looking forward to receiving their iron supplements the following morning.” Great, of course. But why not iron-rich foods?
- Speaking of which, there’s a new FAO publication on “Foods counting for the Nutritional Indicators Biodiversity.” No, I don’t quite understand it myself. Something to do with what foods count towards CBD biodiversity targets. Well, it’s the International Year of Biodiversity, after all.
- Indeed it is. And Nature makes the most of it. See what I did there? No agriculture though, natch.
- Extension gets a forum?
- Biotech can be useful in organic farming? Say it ain’t so!
- More evidence of shifting baselines in people’s perceptions of biodiversity. How quickly they forget.
- Will they forget what forests look like?
- The Vavilov Institute potato collection needs a thorough going over. Taxonomically, that is.
- Making salt in mangrove ponds in Fiji. Nice video. Not agrobiodiversity, but it’s my blog and I like seeing Fiji on it.
- CGIAR abandons agrobiodiversity? Say it ain’t so. Anyone?
- Speaking of megaprogrammes, there’s going to be one on agricultural adaptation to climate change, right?
- “So, how does huitlacoche taste? Does it matter?? LOOK AT IT! I guess it would be fair to say it doesn’t taste as truly horrible as it looks. The flavor is elusive and difficult to describe, but I’ll try: ‘Kinda yucky.'” Don’t believe him! And read the rest.
San Francisco apes Svalbard global seed vault — locally
In our line of work it is common to hear people rave about the importance of informal seed systems for ensuring that farmers have access to the agricultural biodiversity they need and want — in developing countries. Not so common elsewhere. Now, from the Ethicurean, comes news of a project to build a Backyard Seed Vault, which sounds very like an informal seed system in San Francisco, California. The project’s instigator, who is co-executive director of a group called Agrariana (and check out their origins and mission statement), has this to say:
We’re looking for approximately 100 San Francisco Bay Area gardeners for the inaugural season who would like to work as a community to save heirloom vegetable seed. … Agrariana will lead hands-on workshops in participants’ gardens on properly saving seed. The Backyard Seed Vault is working in conjunction with the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (BASIL), a project of the Ecology Center, for their immense knowledge on properly saving, labeling, cataloging, and storing seeds. Seeds not redistributed to participants will be donated to BASIL, providing an opportunity for any community member to “check out” seed to grow in their gardens. Gardeners of all skill levels are welcome to participate.
Sounds like a lot of fun. And there are actually lots of similar seed exchanges all over Europe, North America, Australia etc etc. Will they, I wonder, ever attract the attention of people who study the value of informal seed networks elsewhere?
Nibbles: Rice, Tamil Nadu genebank, Seed Day, Olives, Nordic Cattle, Marmite, Musa, Butterflies, Congo
- Japonica rice heads for the tropics for first time.
- Yet another Indian genebank opens its doors.
- And from somewhere else in India, we are alerted to the fact that today is International Seed Day.
- The biggest little olive farm in the world? Texas virgin on sale.
- Old endangered Norwegian cattle more efficient than modern breed. Genetics too.
- Foods, words, politics — a heady brew.
- Banana vs plantain. Jeremy says: Someone is wrong on the internet.
- Butterfly farming in Kenya under the spotlight. Again.
- Launch video of the expedition down the Congo river; agriculture only a pretty backdrop.