Massive congratulations to David Lobell for being awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
Agricultural transformation in Ethiopia
A very interesting short film about efforts to help smallholder farmers in Ethiopia to become more productive. Maybe a bit long on talking heads in suits and short on specifics, but fascinating insights into how very simple technologies — plant in rows, reduce seeding rate — can transform harvests.
Have they, though, taken account of Land constraints and agricultural intensification in Ethiopia? One hopes so, because, as any fule kno:
Highland Ethiopia is one of the most densely populated regions of Africa and has long been associated with both Malthusian disasters and Boserupian agricultural intensification.
You may need this link to Ester Boserup.
Nibbles: Bees, Okra, Horsemeat, Monoculture, CWRs mapped, Barley, PB&J
- Colony collapse disorder. It’s still complicated.
- The Botanist in the Kitchen is at it again, with an in-depth treatment of okra, slime and chocolate.
- But seriously, why don’t Anglo-Saxons eat equids? It’s all down to religion.
- Nigeria embraces UNCTAD report that warns against monoculture.
- An interactive map of crop wild relatives. If it showed barley too, I know someone who would be in heaven.
- As so often in these matter, Kew comes to the rescue.
- A history of the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. My kind of dietary diversity.
Botanic gardens conserve crop diversity too, two.
Speaking of social media, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh just published an interesting post entitled Botanic gardens conserve crop diversity too. 1 The crux of the matter is that RBGE tweeted about having collected some wild relatives of cabbages and other veg. A picture of one cabbage caught Luigi’s eye, as pictures of wild relatives often will, and he in turn discovered that the population from which it came is not represented in the UK’s leading collection at the Genetic Resources Unit in Warwick. Horrors! As he said at the time:
[T]he material mentioned in the Edinburgh tweet, which comes from Fife in Scotland, is likely to add significant diversity to the “national” collection at Warwick. Scope for some closer collaboration between these two institutes? Well, maybe it’s already there and I haven’t caught it. Do let me know if I’m being unfair.
@RBGE_Science shot back a tweet.
Fast forward less than a week, and RBGE now has this to say:
Seed samples from wild collections … will be passed to the Genetic Resources Unit at Warwick to enhance their CWR collection. An example of the value of this collaboration is provided by the fact that Warwick currently has no Scottish origin wild cabbage. … [T]his in turn will provide further ex-situ conservation for what is quite a rare plant in Scotland.
Was Luigi being unfair? Or should he take full credit for furthering cross-border collaboration in the important matter of cabbage wild relatives?
Nibbles: Rice terrace photos, Street food, Book
- Flickr shows off its best photos of the rice terraces of China. No idea how to embed these on our site. You’ll just have to go see for yourself.
- UK diplomats embrace street food giveaways.
- A book: Cultivate Diversity! That’s an order, obviously. Order it from here.