- Dogs were first domesticated animal. But the love affair is cooling off, at least for some breeds.
- Building capacity for animal genetic resources use, and for conservation and sustainable use under the ITPGRFA. And tree domestication. Is someone keeping track?
- BGI continues to take over DNA world.
- And the Worst Plant Virus Oscar goes to…
- How PNG farmers cope with drought. From what is developing into a really useful blog.
- I wish I had time to read 200 pages on ancient Athenian food. But maybe you do?
- Learn about the USDA potato collection, including lots of wild relatives.
- The tree that thinks it’s a supermarket: Moringa in the limelight again.
Nibbles: Indian livestock, Borlaug book, iFOn, Brassica meet, Pat, Agave, Penguins
- More evidence of India’s fascination with little-known indigenous
cattle breeds. - Forbes reviews Borlaug bio.
- FAO Forestry has a nifty new mobile app. No idea why.
- VI International Symposium on Brassicas and XVIII Crucifer Genetics Workshop looking for sponsors. Any ideas?
- Prof Pat Heslop-Harrison is today’s “Face of Plant Cell Biology“.
- Of course it is a daft idea to claim rights over the word “agave”. But will anyone listen?
- Blimey! A penguin is like a lime juice.
Nibbles: Rice breeding, West African agriculture, Asian AnGR, Wheat breeding, Chinese semiotics, Neglected plant at NordGen, Fledermaus, PPB
- Norwich boffins save the world. To get the real story, you need to deconstruct the piece using this.
- “Results indicate that the greatest agriculture-led growth opportunities in West Africa reside in staple crops (cereals and roots and tubers) and livestock production.” Minor crops get the shaft again?
- Project tackles conservation of Asian farm animal diversity. I’ve always wondered whether there might be a role for ecotourism. I’d pay to see weird cocks. And hens.
- Pakistani boffins return home with skills to improve wheat P efficiency. And the resources? We shall see.
- Chinese food and plant semiotics. Can’t wait for LanguageLog to get to grips with this.
- NordGen characterizes a weirdly-named exotic Cinderella crop. Can you guess which?
- And can you guess what the “best kept secret of agricultural success” might be? Clue: nothing to do with those East Anglian boffins of the first item.
- Participatory plant breeding and gender analysis. They’re not giving much away at the source site.
Telling it like it is for rice in Nepal
I’d like to pretend that our absence yesterday was a mark of solidarity with all the netizens protesting against the proposed SOPA/PIPA laws in the US. It wasn’t; we were just both snowed under. But we do think SOPA/PIPA is a mistake.
The latest issue of IRRI’s magnificent organ Rice Today contains an article on Seeds of life in Nepal. All good stuff, about how private companies and the state supply less than 10% of Nepal’s rice seed needs. The rest comes from the informal seed sector. IRRI stigmatizes those seeds as being “low quality”. So, along with the National Rice Research Program, IRRI swung into action, setting up farmer trials of modern varieties, which “within a short time … were identified as superior to local lines”.
They were Radha-32, Ghaiya-2, IR55435-5, Pakhejhinuwa, Radha-4, Ram Dhan, Barkhe-3017, Sunaulo sugandha, Barkhe-2024, and NR-1824-21-1-1.
To get seed to farmers, the project helped set up local seed producer groups, which ramped up production from 4 tonnes to 30 tonnes over three years. Even that, however, was enough for only about 1 in 10 of the farmers in the immediate neighbourhood. More groups followed in other villages, and everyone is now happy.
Except us and some people in Nepal.
The article boasts that “millet and maize that used to replace rice on the table are now feeds for livestock and poultry”. Is that an unalloyed good thing?
Were the local varieties really that bad, and were they conserved? Nepal has a good record of participatory plant breeding (PPB) and community seedbanks and seed producers, set up with local NGOs and other research centres, although one wouldn’t know it from IRRI’s article. Some of the PPB varieties produced in those projects were used by IRRI in the on-farm trials; no mention of those either. Were they rubbish? Or are their names in the list without saying where they came from? LI-BIRD, the NGO most closely associated with PPB and seed producer groups in Nepal, recently published its report for 2009-2010; it contains an article on Community based seed production and another on Community seed banks.
A sheep at the wheel
The discussion of transhumance going on in the comments to an old post, and in particular Jacob’s link to a recent sheepish demonstration in Madrid, reminded me of this reminiscence from the BBC’s long-time Rome correspondent, David Willey.
One of my most vivid memories of 1957 was getting up early one Sunday morning and seeing a shepherd leading his flock of several hundred sheep down the Via del Corso, along the main street that bisects the heart of the ancient city.
Too bad Mr Willey didn’t have his Brownie ready…