- Got a Neotropical flowering plant to identify? Kew has what you need.
- New Labour goes out with a whimper, and a swipe at cider-makers.
- Drought Timing for Agronomic Screening wins a prize.
- “We’ve heard about the Gene Bank project which serves to preserve certain cultivars and seed specimens, but we don’t know much else about this project.” Par for the course.
- Meanwhile, another genebank does get decent publicity.
- Women and homegardens in Bangladesh.
- Bag farms in Nairobi slum.
- Review of Dirt! The Movie.
- Boffins this close to drought-tolerant cowpeas.
- “…actual grain yield in some regions is already approximating its maximum possible yields while other regions show large yield gaps and therefore tentative larger potential for intensification.”
- The wife is going to the 1st International Symposium on Tropical Horticulture. Jamaica? No, she really wanted to go.
Tributes to Bob Rhoades
Ashamed of the brevity of our note on the passing of Prof. Robert Rhoades a few days back, I welcome this opportunity of giving more prominence to comments on that post from a couple of friends of his.
From Cary:
Bob Rhoades was a wonderful man who made a tremendous contribution to our field. He was indeed a great teacher, advisor and researcher. In addition to what is mentioned in the short article above, let me note that he worked for a number of years at CIP, and was the author of another memorable National Geographic article, “The Incredible Potato.” He also co-founded the Southern Seed Legacy with his wife, Prof. Virginia Nazarea, who is also a very prominent figure in crop diversity. Personally, I treasure the times I spent with Bob at his farm outside Athens, and a trip we made on the back-roads through Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, visiting seed savers and conservationist along the way.
And from Pablo:
I am so saddened to hear that Bob Roades died. He was perhaps the first social scientist to systematically document, improve and extend farmer’s knowledge about agricultural biodiversity. His modest and warm approach in the field, his gentle humour, and sharp intellect earned him the respect of farmers everywhere he worked. As anthropologists we are proud of the pathbreaking work that Bob did, charting the way so that many others could also contribute. Bob loved speaking about his farm in Georgia, his Oklahoma roots, his marriage to Virginia. His generosity and ideas keep him dear to me. My condolences to Virginia and his family.
Robert Rhoades RIP
Robert E. Rhoades is dead. He was a pioneer of agricultural anthropology and wrote extensively on conservation of agrobiodiversity, especially how local people do it. His 1991 National Geographic piece The World’s Food Supply at Risk is a classic.
Nibbles: Sheep genotypes, Farming Matters, African Rice Congress, Malawi food, Quinoa et al.
- Better sheep through information. From Australia, natch. Thanks, Dirk.
- New Farming Matters out. When did this ILEIA magazine change its name? Remains essential reading anyway.
- Some participants voice their expectations of the African Rice Congress.
- A traditional Malawi meal.
- Whole grain recipes.
The microbe commons in the spotlight
The International Journal of the Commons, a new one on me, has a special issue on microbes. Actually, not just microbes. The idea seems to be to compare and contrast what is happening in microbial genetic resources with the access and benefit sharing and IPR regimes which are in force for other bits of biodiversity. There’s even an interesting paper entitled “Crop improvement in the CGIAR as a global success story of open access and international collaboration,” by Byerlee and Dubin. Elinor Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics, is a member of the editorial board of the journal.