- DFID-supported collection of stories showing how information about new ways of doing things is communicated to rural people in developing countries includes some agrobiodiversity stuff.
- The genetic nature of the Pea-comb phenotype in chickens.
- Entomopathogenic fungus can become an endophyte in sorghum and confer protection from stem borer. Ain’t agrobiodiversity grand?
- Different earthworm species have different effects on the competition between four annual plants and their relative fecundity. Ain’t agrobiodiversity grand?
The politics of toddy
Coconut farmers receive Toddy Movement members released on bail.
That’s the intriguing title of a short piece from Tamil Nadu on the NewKerala.com website. It turns out that dozens of farmers had been thrown in jail a few days ago for tapping coconut toddy without the permission of the state government. The farmers claim that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has reneged on an election promise to rethink the ban on toddy in force in the state. So they started tapping and selling the beverage in their fields in protest. The reaction seemed a bit heavy-handed to me, but apparently toddy is a bit of a political hot potato (as it were) in Tamil Nadu:
In Tamil Nadu, this beverage is currently banned, though the legality fluctuates with politics. In the absence of legal toddy, moonshine distillers of arrack often sell methanol-contaminated alcohol, which can have lethal consequences. To discourage this practice, authorities have pushed for inexpensive “Indian Made Foreign Liquor” (IMFL), much to the dismay of toddy tappers.
Last year the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Tamil Nadu government to prohibit the manufacture, sale and consumption of toddy in the state (there is no ban in other states). The Chief Justice explained the decision in part thus:
“it is a policy decision of the State government. There is no fundamental right to manufacture or trade in liquor. The problem with toddy is it affects ordinary people in villages. Whisky or other liquor is not easily accessible to the common man.”
So that’s allright then. Now, the statement made in an article in The Hindu a few years back about the consequences of the ban for rural livelihoods may be a bit exaggerated:
The Salem district unit of National Agriculturalists Awareness Movement (NAAM) staged a demonstration here on Friday asking the State Government to allow toddy tapping… They said the denial of toddy tapping had ushered in poverty in rural areas.
But toddy must represent a significant contribution to the income of thousands of farming families — and no doubt has done for generations. And the ban may well be contributing to the disappearance of specialized coconut types. Why replant and tend varieties favoured for toddy if you can’t make the stuff?
Go on, Chief Minister Karunanidhi: legalize it!
Nibbles: Meadows, Bees, Books
- Ecological manifesto cum plant giveway cum art. ‘Nuff said.
- The effects non-native plants have on native plants and pollinators. Say what?
- Old books minable for ancient wisdom. You don’t say.
DIVERSEEDS puts out DVD
DIVERSEEDS is a scientific project supported fully by the European Commission´s 6th framework programme. We are “Networking on conservation and use of plant genetic resources in Europe and Asia.”
And I think we may have mentioned them before. Anyway, the latest news from the network is that they have a DVD out:
This documentary shows why biodiversity is important for agriculture and how it is conserved and used in many different locations in Europe and Asia.
The DVD costs about US$40, but you can get a discount if you order five or more. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t tell you much more about it. But the contents seems to consist of a series of fifteen or so short (average 3 minutes) films on a wide variety of agrobiodiversity conservation and use initiatives, ranging from the Austrian NGO Arche Noah, to the Thai genebank, to crop wild relatives in the Fertile Crescent, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. I’ll try to get hold of a copy and report.
Livestock videos on YouTube
FAO’s Animal Genetic Resources Group has a YouTube channel. The latest addition is “Keepers of Genes — India’s pastoralists and their breeds.”
The League of Pastoral People has teamed up with award-winning documentary filmmakers, Moving Images to produce a series of films on pastoralism. Films have proved a very powerful tool for visually transporting policymakers into the situation of pastoralists. The first film in the series, Keepers of Genes, focuses on the role of pastoralists in conserving biodiversity.