Category: Indigenous knowledge systems

Posted on

How to react to emergencies

From early 2000, various agencies and individuals involved in livestock relief work began to question the quality and professionalism of their interventions.

Wow, thanks for sharing. Anyway, out of that crisis of self-esteem was LEGS born, the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards. It’s not immediately clear to me after a brief browse of the website to what extent agrobiodiversity considerations come into these standards and guidelines, but I’ll explore some more and get back to you. Anyone out there aware of a similarly formalized initiative for seeds? It’s not as if guidelines for seed interventions are not needed. But they may be there already for all I know, embedded in the WFP and FAO seed relief playbooks.

LATER: And indeed they are. Good to know. Thanks to Tom Osborn from FAO.

Posted on

Nibbles: Educashun, Landscapes, Botany, AnGR, Tourism, Ham museum, Native American seeds, Ancient Egyptian grain storage, Ancient beer

  • Want to teach about agrobiodiversity? Help is at hand.
  • Want to learn about agrobiodiversity? Stay here.
  • Want to know what’s going on in biodiversity conservation at Cambridge? Here’s how. Tell us if agriculture gets a look-in. If it doesn’t, come back here. But I bet there’ll be something about landscapes.
  • What is a landscape? “The answer … differs tremendously depending on the respondent,” it says here. Wow, those Cambridge boffins will be so shocked.
  • Want to know about the plants in that landscape whose definition is so much in the hands of respondents? Most were discovered by just a few botanical superstars. But how many women?
  • And if that landscape is Turkish and there are (is?) livestock in it, this is what you’ll see.
  • Want to tour the world’s top evolution sites? Here’s the first stop. Now, how about crop evolution (and domestication, natch) sites. Like some livestock- and crop-wild-relative-discovered-by-a-botanical-superstar-filled Turkish landscape, perhaps.
  • Or what about sites connected with food production and marketing more generally, for that matter. No, that list would be too long. Interesting, but too long. Would need to prioritize ruthlessly.
  • One thing for certain, though, it should include a couple of community genebanks.
  • Where it is not inconceivable that seeds would be protected following age-old practices. Which may or may not be taught in fancy courses.
  • Oh, and beer.
Posted on

Nibbles: Chillies, Catfish, Blight, Beef, Svalbard, Biofortification, Agriculture and health book, Ahipa, GBIF, Pacific grape and nuts, Cassava and marriage, Amazon, Lost genebanks, Vietnamese food, Yoghurt

Posted on

Agricultural calendar in northern Thailand

Thanks to Amanda for sending us this photo of one of the exhibits at the Opium Museum at Chiang Saen, Thailand, which is in the middle of the Golden Triangle. A nice way of displaying variation in local knowledge about agricultural practices, in this case the cropping calendar. It was not accompanied, alas, by a similar display of differences in crop or variety menus, alas. But one can imagine how that too could be made rather attractive.