That’s the theme and title of the latest issue of LEISA Magazine, which explores “how human health is being improved through good natural resource management and maintenance of ecosystem health.” There are articles on neglected crops, traditional medicinal plants and organic agriculture, among other things — lots of agrobiodiversity related stuff. Thanks again to Danny for the headsup. Great reading.
Rice art
All good things come to an end. But not usually this well.
Farmer breeder wants to patent variety
The story of Sebastian Joseph, Kerala farmer, who developed a great new variety of cardamom, but doesn’t think he has profited from it as much as he should have.
World Development special issue
Historical food information
Weird how just a couple of days after I blogged about current African foodways, The Lubin Files at FAO points me to a wonderful website about the past eating habits of various East African countries. This was put together by Verena Raschke, who at the time was completing a PhD jointly at University of Vienna (Austria) and Monash University (Australia).
[Her] project is based on a precious and unique collection of literature and data from East Africa from the 1930s to the 1960s.
…
These unpublished data have been stored at the Federal Research Centre for Nutrition and Food Location Karlsruhe (Germany) for the last 30 years, after the Max Planck Nutrition Research Unit in Tanzania (East Africa) was shut down in the late1970s.
The material is called the Oltersdorf Collection, and it is a veritable treasure trove of historical information on crops, food and nutrition.