- Pamela Akinyi Nyagilo wins prize for teaching Kenyan kids to grow indigenous greens. In 2007, but better late with the news than never.
- The Great War did for truffles?
- “Does a local food system truly enhance the integrity of a community, much less make the peasant the equal of a prince and eliminate greed?” And more. And more. And more. And…
- Crop art, and more. And more.
- Brassica seeds survive 40 years in a genebank with no loss of viability. Phew.
- “It seems that, while discount and low-end retailers face more difficulties selling organic products, specialised organic shops and high-end retailers continue to develop beyond expectations.”
- “As Andy Jarvis, an award-winning crop scientist, puts it: ‘When you look at the graph, under even small average heat rises, the line for maize just goes straight down.’ “
Nibbles: Cowpea storage, Expensive Japanese apples, Nutrients in vegetables
- Sometimes breeding better cowpeas is not enough, they need to be bagged properly.
- Sometimes breeding better apples is not enough, they need to be bagged properly.
- Biofortifying brassica through breeding. No bags involved.
Nibbles: Fruit tattoos, Nutrition, Traditional food, Chinese houses
- What I’ve always wanted: laser machine to “tattoo” fruit for identification.
- Latest version of USDA’s Premier Nutrient Database. Nothing below the species level that I could see.
- Traditional food fair at National Museum of Kenya. Sounds like fun.
- Photos of Chinese rural dwellings. And some of the surrounding agrobiodiversity. Very fine.
We are what we crop? – Part 2
Jacob van Etten continues our coffee-table conversation about whether crops determine everything.
All of this started off with Wittfogel’s Oriental despotism and how crops (rice) and cropping technologies (irrigation) give shape to whole societies. Jeremy mentioned Malcolm Gladwell, who argues in Outliers that Asians are good in math because they grow rice. Crops determine everything?
Wittfogel first. Some more recent opinions nuance the point about hierarchical rice societies. Yes, irrigation tends to give rise to more hierarchical societies. Dorian Fuller and Ling Qin write that the rise of water management in China in archaeological times went hand in hand with the development of social hierarchies. ((D.Q. Fuller & L. Qin. 2009. Water management and labour in the origins and dispersal of Asian rice. World Archaeology 41(1): 88-111.)) But rice irrigation is not as hierarchical as if Henry Ford had organized it. A lot of ‘participation’ goes on, as most water management ultimately relies on the efforts of both big and small players. Francesca Bray writes:
One of the main arguments that underlies such theories is that only a highly centralised state can mobilise sufficient capital and technical and administrative expertise to construct and run huge irrigation systems. It is certainly true that both Hindu and, later, Buddhist monarchs all over Southeast Asia saw it as part of their kingly role, an act of the highest religious merit, to donate generously from the royal treasuries to provide the necessary materials and funding. But kings were not the only instigators of such works. Temples, dignitaries, or even rich villagers often gave endowments to construct or maintain irrigation works on different scales.
Malcolm Gladwell actually argues something similar:
By the 14th and 15th centuries, landlords in central and southern China had a nearly hands-off role with their tenants, collecting only a fixed amount and letting farmers keep whatever yields they had left over. Farmers had a stake in their harvest, leading to greater diligence and success.
Nibbles: Introgression in sorghum, British cheese, Cassava development, Fishing
- “Farmers have quite accurate perceptions about the genetic nature of their sorghum plants, accurately distinguishing not only domesticated landraces from the others, but also among three classes of introgressed individuals, and classing all four along a continuum that corresponds well to genetic patterns. Their practices are fairly effective in limiting gene flow”
- Cheese map of Britain. Had no idea there was a National Cheese. I always liked Wensleydale.
- “I harvested part of the cassava and transported it to the nearest processing centre, where it was peeled, washed, pressed, dried and milled into cassava flour. They charged me Tsh600 per kilogramme (about half a dollar) and the market price was Tsh380 a kilo.”
- The giant Ponzi Scheme that is modern fishing.