- Solutions for a Hungry World from PopSci: supercrops, C4 rice, remapping Africa and robots. But no agrobiodiversity.
- The symbolism of chicory.
- The backyard poultry value chain deconstructed.
- The Dobos Memorial Gastronomy Museum sounds fun.
- Join USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan at 3:45 pm ET on 1 October for a LIVE Facebook chat about local food systems.
- One-Village-One-Product in Uganda. I call that a hostage to fortune.
- Ndara, mathunzu and ngaa all that stand between drought-hit Kenyan livestock and starvation in Ukambani.
Perennial kales in Ecuador
Where did that come from, I asked myself, as we looked around the home garden of an agrotourist lodge near Cotacachi in Ecuador. No, not the wonderful neotropical fruits, or the fiery Brugmannsia, or the tree they called guava that looked to me like a carob; certainly a legume of some sort. 1 Not any of the exotica that were at home here, but this thing, a brassica looking for all the world like a small tree.
To me it looked like one of the perennial kales, or even the Jersey Walking Stick Cabbage that I’ve grown in the UK and seen in Basque country and parts of Portugal. On the other side of the path was a red-leaved variety that had a much more dissected leaf, a little like Red Russian kale but again growing like a tree.
Fortunately the lady of the lodge, Dona Digna, who has every reason to be proud of the accomplishments of her community, was there with us, and even more fortunately I had the services of an expert translator. 2 I asked how they used it, and was told that they picked individual leaves as needed, and that now it was not good at all, much too tough. OK, well then how do you get tender leaves? In the spring, we make new plants. How?
At which Digna snapped off a branch of the red kale and said that you just plant a stem in the ground. So it never has flowers? No, never.
So it really is a perennial brassica, not one of the walking stick types, which do flower and set seed. But that’s as far as I could go in my investigation. I have no idea how long the local people have been growing it, where they first got it from, or what they think of it. But it was fun to see something truly exotic in Ecuador. And maybe it could add a datapoint to a study that revealed a high degree of duplication among perennial kale accessions.
Niche products from Bengali cows highlighted
There’s a wonderful message just in from Dr Sandip Banerjee to the DAD-Net discussion list on domestic animal diversity. After sounding the alarm for the Rumpless Fowl and various local goat breeds of Bengal, which he says require urgent conservation efforts, he has this to say about what’s happening with the cattle 3:
…I was overwhelmed when I saw a herd of indigenous cattle being maintained at the International Society of Krishna Consiousness (ISKON) farm at Mayapur. The herd they maintain comprises of Gir, Kankrej and Sahiwal breeds. The animals are very well maintained and it was really pleasing to see the magnificent animals and their calves. They are also marketing clarified butter (ghee) prepared from the cream obtained from the native Indian cattle, Go Ark (a traditional Ayurvedic medicine developed from the urine and medicinal herbs which has been patented Number US patent-6410059, dt 25/06/02), the other products are Pachamrit (for gastric troubles) and Ghanabati (tablets of dried cow urine). These product are developed according to the traditional Ayurvedic principles and are marketed through their outlets.
I had no idea that it was possible to obtain quite this range of products from cattle. This is how Dr Banerjee signs off:
If such good activities are carried out by societies throughout India then why are the Government Farms (which are well established and staffed) fail to deliver, I can only conclude it by saying that there is lack of serious willingness to do so at all levels.
Sounds like a gauntlet being thrown down.
Nibbles: Prosopis as food, Chickpea delicacy, Livestock genetic erosion in Kashmir, Pholisma
- Making mesquite pancakes.
- The origin of hummus.
- “But militants on the one side and security forces on the other shot dead these dogs as they set off alarms at every movement. Now we are hardly left with any dogs.”
- “Sand food” is endangered, apparently.
Nibbles: WFP and Millennium Villages, Agroecotourism squared, Mango, Wild pollinators, CGIAR change process, Grape breeding, Landraces and climate change, Mau Forest, Eels
- “…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind.
- More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador.
- Heritage tourism in the Virgin Islands targets old sugar cane mill.
- The “mango villages” of India.
- Pollination needs to go wild.
- Ok, so the CGIAR is going to re-organize itself into mega-programmes (look at the PDF at the bottom of the page), one of which is on “Crop germplasm conservation, enhancement and use.” Big deal? I wish I knew.
- Pssst, wanna discuss grape breeding?
- More from IIED on landraces and climate change.
- Deforestation, drought and politics in Kenya.
- Tracking eel migrations.