Category: Housekeeping

Easing back into the never-ending treadmill that is blogging, I thought I’d share with you one reader’s appreciation of our efforts:

Thanks for writing on this subject. There’s a bunch of important technical information on the internet nowadays. You’ve got a lot of that info here on your blog. I’m highly impressed – I try to keep a couple of blogs pretty neat, but it’s seemingly impossible at times. You have done a solid job with this one in particular. How do you manage to do it?

Thanks for that sincere and heartfelt praise, Mr Spammy, of Tips to Losing Weight, and in answer to your penetrating question, sometimes I wonder myself.

We’ve had a couple of flattering comments on some obscure pages lately. ((Why would you comment on the Contact page? Beats me. Anyway, we’re disabling comments there.)) One asked:

Please, let me know, if your organisation supports our research work.

The first response is that we are not an organisation. Just a couple of guys discussing agricultural biodiversity. With occasional wonderful contributions from our friends. But, hey. Thanks.

The second, possibly much more important response is that no, we don’t support anyone’s research. We can barely support ourselves. We often get asked about support, and all we can do is sympathise with the difficulties researchers face, especially those outside the mainstream. There really isn’t much we can offer.

In the very traditional realm, IFAR has a small grants program that might be a source of funding.

Thinking a bit sideways, it could be worth trying to get something like Global Giving to take a project on board, although pure research is unlikely to make it. I discovered them through a campaign to educate girls, and it seems like they have some really interesting ideas.

Finally, a completely off the wall suggestion that first emerged in our posts about the Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter: Kickstarter. Sure, they say they’re mostly about creativity, but what could be more creative than finding new ways to use agrobiodiversity to solve problems of food and nutrition security?

If you are aware of other possible sources of small grants, why not add them to this post in a (totally legitimate use of a) comment?

Sorry about the lack of service lately. Things are a bit hectic, with both of us traveling. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible