Indigenous knowledge systems

October 28, 2009October 28, 2009

Development Marketplace

The World Bank’s Development Marketplace opens its doors on Tuesday 10 November. The idea is “to identify 20 to 25 innovative, early-stage projects addressing climate adaptation” and support them with grants of up to USD 200,000.

You may remember that last year our friend Hannes Dempewolf was one of the winners. ((Hey, Hannes, how about a very informal progress report?)) Is there anything this year of interest to agricultural biodiversity? Hard to say, mostly because the list of 100 finalists is available only as a PDF and doesn’t give a whole heap of information, but on past form, there’s bound to be. The Development Marketplace blog may be the place to follow the action, and if you’re around the World Bank, and have registered at the Marketplace’s web site, why not visit and send us your predictions of likely winners?

October 20, 2009

Nibble: Wild apples, Genetic erosion, Bananas, Cow DNA, Honeybee virus survey, Women and traditional agriculture

BBC slideshow on the wild apples of Khazakhstan.
Malawi breeder decries genetic erosion.
Bananas good for food security in central Africa. Well, yes.
The ruminant family tree deconstructed.
Public to help researchers locate wild honeybee colonies in Hawaii.
“No Pesticides No Foreign Drinks.”

October 17, 2009October 17, 2009

Techuitlatl and dihé

What is the lacustrine agrobiodiversity eaten both by the Aztecs and the Kanembu people of Lake Chad? Fascinating case of parallel cultural evolution.

October 16, 2009October 17, 2009

Nibbles: New York, Kenya, London

Restoring grasslands on Long Island. I know, not very agrobiodiversity, but it brought back memories.
“Children long for Coca-Cola, though, far more than they do mursik, and for them food means maize and potatoes, not millet or sorghum.” This brought back memories too, and is about agrobiodiversity to boot.
Urban winemaking in London. And yes, memories here too.

October 15, 2009October 15, 2009

Give us the gift of your indigenous knowledge

I know it is impossible to believe, but we’ve been straining nourishing chunks from the effluvium that courses through the interwebs for three whole years. Would you do something for us?

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is the English proverb that sums up the value of agricultural biodiversity better than almost anything else. ((And thanks to Caitlin Burke for the photo, from Flickr.))

Are you aware of equivalents in other languages? Stick them in the comments. Please. We’ll do something with them, eventually.