- Calestous Juma gives new FAO head some advice: find a role, build on what farmers do and know, engage civil society, help governments prioritize, and slash bureaucracy.
- Religion and conservation: friends of enemies?
- Eastern Africa Agricultural Productivity Project seems to be mainly about setting up regional centres of excellence in dairy, cassava, rice and wheat. Maybe ASARECA should ask for some advice from Prof. Juma?
- Land use map of the UK. Let the mash-upping begin.
- Training in sustainable conservation agriculture in India and Mexico. But how really sustainable is the whole thing if based on modern varieties? Oh, and Brazil too.
- Saving the Amazon for $33 a month.Or maybe just a buck?
- Local cooking a long way from home, Part I; from Colombia to Washington DC.
- Local cooking a long way from home, Part II; from everywhere to New York’s Lower East Side.
- Don’t worry, exploding watermelons are perfectly safe, and legal.
- FAO updates its webpage on “Implementing the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources” and documents the fact by providing a time stamp. Jeremy chuffed.
Amazonian ethnobotany from the beginning
The main rubber tree, which the British took to Malaysia, was the basis of all plantations. There are nine other plants in that same group from which the Indians once got rubber. But the plantations had started to supply the world with better and cheaper rubber than the Indians had been producing under terrible — almost slave — conditions. So the Indians had three or four generations when they hadn’t tapped wild rubber, and we were sent into the various countries to try to stimulate this for the war effort. I had been in the Amazon of Colombia, so I went right back among my Indians, and I worked on that during the war.
That’s the Father of Modern Ethnobotany, Richard Schultes, in part of a long interview he gave in 1990 for something called the Academy of Achievement. You can read it, listen to it, or watch videos of it. Fascinating.
If they can do it in LA, why not in Kibera?
I’m gobsmacked by something that’s happening in Los Angeles. Here’s the idea:
Document your food purchases. Every 2 weeks, we’ll be asking you to record your purchases of a different food type. We’ll send you an email to let you know what it is. So, during the fortnight that the food type is bananas, every time you buy a banana, whether you’re at the supermarket, filling up at a petrol station, or grabbing breakfast to go at a coffee shop, we want you to whip out your phone, open Foodprint LA: Bananas in Kullect, 1 take a quick photo of your banana(s), enter the price, choose from a list of vendors, and contribute your individual banana purchase data to help create a bigger picture of the Los Angeles banana-scape. Repeat step 3 as many times as you buy bananas during that two-week banana-data Kullection.
Why?
We’ll take the data (anonymised, of course), analyse it for patterns and insights, and create data visualisations — infographics, maps, and charts — that we can share with everyone who wants to understand the city’s foodscape a little bit better.
The resulting data won’t replace a rigorous foodshed study in the city’s planning process, of course. Nonetheless, we think that crowd-sourcing the data-gathering process and then mining the resulting information to tell stories and ask new questions will be a fun way to build awareness and encourage conversation about where the Los Angeles’ food actually comes from.
That has to be doable in Kibera, or anywhere that people are struggling to access good food. And think of the insights. My head is spinning …
Nibbles: Seed mothers, Bees, Strawberry, Chilli collection, Talk on agrobiodiversity
- Need seed? Ask a bihana-maa, at least if you are in Orissa.
- Decline in UK honeybees reveals that crops not so dependent on them after all. Huh?
- A new strawberry for aesthetically-minded home gardeners.
- Wild Chilli group of Europe to visit Experimental Garden and Genebank of the Radboud University of Nijmegen. Send us a report?
- A free talk about the importance of perpetuating food plant resources for the future on Thursday, July 14. Oh, it’s on Hawaii. Send us a report?
Brainfood: Medic systematics, Fruit wine, Alfa paper, Marula diversity, Cardamon pollination, Protein, Ants, Peanuts, Truffles, Ethiopian barley, Citrus diversity, Biofuel trees, Honeybush, Czech garlic
- Genetic similarity based on isoenzyme banding pattern among fifty species of Medicago representing eight sections (Fabaceae). People are still using isozymes? I find that oddly endearing.
- Preparation and evaluation of antioxidant capacity of Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) wine and its protective role against radiation induced DNA damage. In other news, you can make wine from jackfruit.
- Pulping and papermaking properties of Tunisian Alfa stems (Stipa tenacissima)—Effects of refining process. Yep, a paper on paper.
- Phenotypic variations in fruits and selection potential in Sclerocarya birrea subsp. birrea. There’s a lot of it.
- Pollination studies in large cardamom (Amomum subulatum Roxb.) of Sikkim Himalayan region of India. It needs a native bumblebee.
- Effect of proteins from different sources on body composition. Hard to be sure, but probably no difference between animal and plant protein. If you’re trying to lose weight, that is.
- Ants as biological control agents in agricultural cropping systems. More common than you think, but can’t be taken for granted.
- Origin of triploid Arachis pintoi (Leguminosae) by autopolyploidy evidenced by FISH and meiotic behaviour. Maybe that was they key step on the road to the edible peanut.
- The biochemistry and biological properties of the world’s most expensive underground edible mushroom: Truffles. Not just a pretty smell.
- Ethnobotany, diverse food uses, claimed health benefits and implications on conservation of barley landraces in North Eastern Ethiopia highlands. Landraces “just” liked for culinary qualities are having a hard time.
- Comparative analysis of genetic diversity in Citrus germplasm collection using AFLP, SSAP, SAMPL and SSR markers. Boys with toys.
- Tree legumes as feedstock for sustainable biofuel production: Opportunities and challenges. Pongamia pinnata is the thing, apparently, but it’ll need research. NIMBY!
- Honeybush (Cyclopia spp.): From local cottage industry to global markets — The catalytic and supporting role of research. South African bush tea a blueprint for the development of a neglected/underutilized species? Yeah, why not.
- Diversity of S-alk(en)yl cysteine sulphoxide content within a collection of garlic (Allium sativum L.) and its association with the morphological and genetic background assessed by AFLP. Czech genebank follows up Brassica genetic diversity study with one on garlic. SACS is an important end-use trait, and varies among genetic groups.