- Maya nut blogs.
- And then there are the ARTCs. What do you mean, you don’t need another acronym?
- Pedal powered grain cleaning – with a link to a video of the thing in action. Could it be adapted for poorer places?
- A new research project on cacao in the Dominican Republic, and how it could support more biodiversity.
- Because we all know that crops compete with conservation, right?
- Cash, food or vouchers? In one study, vouchers result in greater dietary diversity.
- Speaking of which, maybe you can use varietal diversification to manage climate risk in East Africa.
- Or perhaps you can leave it all to ecosystem services.
- Speaking of which, someone actually asked Kenyan farmers how they perceive and respond to climate change.
- Speaking of which, the University of Nairobi has embraced open access.
- Speaking of which, in March there’ll be International Training Course Plant Conservation Biology: Science and Practice, which you can find here, with a little effort.
- The executive summary of a Union of Concerned Scientists report on drought-resistant crops.
- At a loose end? Listen to an hour of economics podcast on organic farming from that link.
Nibbles: Genome assembly, Congo livelihoods, Tilman, Peak farmland, Lima bean project, Cotton award, Translocation, Sudanese seed, Pachyrhizus, Conference, Agro-ecology, SEAVEG, Indigenous foodways,
- The latest genomic whiz-bangery.
- CIFOR’s Congo slideshow makes The Guardian. About as far from genomic whiz-bangery as you can get.
- Speaking of which… Very long talk by David Tilman. Almost certainly worth watching in its entirety. Eventually. It all depends on trade-offs. See what I did there?
- Agriculture stops expanding. Is it all that genomic whiz-bangery?
- U. of Delaware gets big Lima bean grant. Yes, Delaware. They got whiz-bangery in Delaware too.
- Meanwhile, Texan cotton breeder gets award. For a certain amount of whiz-bangery.
- Translocation and restoration: cool, but a last resort, whiz-bangery says.
- Support for the seed sector in S. Sudan. Any landraces? No whiz-bangery in sight.
- And likewise for the yam bean in Africa.
- Wonder whether that’ll be on the agenda at the First Food Security Futures Conference in April. Probably not.
- Nor, probably, will anyone be thinking too hard about agro-ecology; but you could be, with this handy-dandy introduction to holistic management.
- SEAVEG; no, not nori etc, but veg in SE Asia.
- Different animals need different kinds of fodder, ILRI shows how.
- Wishing success to the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative launched at the University of Arkansas today.
PAGxxi tweetstorm of sorts
PAGxxi, billed as “The Largest Ag-Genomics Meeting in the World” is off and running in San Diego, with its full complement of social media bells and whistles. I’m quite enjoying the Twitter feed. Not the official one, mind you, which is pretty boring, but there’s a half a dozen or so people (so far) who are taking the hashtag very seriously. I hope they keep it up.
https://twitter.com/plgepts/status/290626742916378624
Yes, we have many solutions
IITA has a pretty nice video out about controlling Banana Xanthomonas Wilt via genetic modification.
Now, don’t jump to any conclusions, I have nothing against genetic modification of banana. In fact, if you’re going to use genetic modification on anything, bananas should be right up there. No chance of that pesky transgene escaping into the wild, for a start. Although I would like to know how they’re planning to engineer resistance into the dozens of varieties that are important in East Africa. Wait, you mean they’re not going to do that? Just a few, eh?
Well, anyway. My main point is that the video gives no hint at all that, as far as BXW control is concerned at any rate, there are other, perfectly viable, options. And IITA knows this, because it has been involved in the development of a pretty effective, multi-faceted, low-cost, integrated, sustainable strategy for control. One that doesn’t involve the threat of reducing the diversity of the crop.
Of course, it would help if there were similarly nice videos about that. There are factsheets galore, true. Lots of factsheets. But videos? Well, maybe you can get them to work. And anyway they don’t really seem to be aimed at the general audience so clearly targeted by IITA’s vid. How can we make the case that there are occasionally more appropriate, sustainable solutions than GMOs when we can’t even win the battle of the videos?
Nibbles: CGIAR vision, GFAR vision, UNEP vision, Tree seeds, Aerial vision, Visions of potatoes, Soybeans, DNA sequencing, Rewilding
- The latest bit of CGIAR navel-gazing is about whether research should be for or in development.
- The Futures of Agriculture: Brief No. 42. No, really, 42. Love that plural, though
- And of course UNEP needs to have its say too.
- Oh, wow, someone actually doing something.
- How about a visionary use for tree seeds? Burn ’em!
- Then there are visions of potato diversity.
- And a vision of a world covered in soybeans.
- And DNA sequences as far as the eye can see. So, can we get all those wild relatives done now, just for the heck of it?
- Can you take one more vision? Here’s one of rewilded Europe.