Nibbles: Funding, Grains, Wildflowers, AVRDC, Cloning, Salinity, Education, Sheep dogs, Swans, Writing, Fisheries, Big ag

One country’s response to the threat of climate change

“We want our farmers to grow several crops, not just one crop. We are encouraging our farmers to go into organic farming using shrubs, leaves, herbal pesticide and no chemicals involved so that we can reduce dependency on costly chemical fertilizers. We should improve our yields through applying modern farming techniques such as irrigation and water harvesting technologies. … Farmers are also being taught to alternate rows of crops that complement each other in drawing nutrients from the soil or carbon from the atmosphere. … We must diversify. We must change the methods of farming. We want to change and to achieve our desired goals in increasing household food security, increasing our yields, increasing our production. Productivity is what matters most.

So, where do you suppose all that is happening? Here.

Nibbles: Statement, Words, Training, Policy, Auberato, Coconut, GIS, Pacific nutrition, Honey

Oil crisis promotes heritage rice varieties

Dept. of Silver Linings:

Sri Lanka’s farmers who grow paddy for their home needs are now discovering a new trend. Instead of the widely-cultivated hybrid varieties they have opted to grow more traditional varieties of paddy as the latter are more nutritious, rich in taste, pest-resistant and need no artificial, petroleum-based fertilizer.

Apparently some farmers are keeping more than 350 different traditional varieties.