Information

September 6, 2011September 6, 2011

Yet more information on the food trees of Africa

A new series of booklets ‘African Priority Food Tree Species’ offers an important step in gathering existing information together, offering a synthesis of 11 priority food tree species native to sub-Saharan Africa, such as the Baobab and the Shea Butter tree. The series also includes recommendations for their conservation and sustainable use.

And very nice the results look too. But what the series of booklets also offers is a bit of an overlap with the Agroforestree Database. See for yourself for Blighia sapida: the SAFORGEN booklet vs the pdf you get from the Agroforestree database.

One does wonder to what extent Bioversity and ICRAF worked together on this, in the spirit of the shiny new CGIAR.

September 6, 2011September 6, 2011

Nibbles: Drought tolerance, Cassava pests, Sorghum beer, Frankincense, Permaculture in Asia, RDA

“…drought-tolerant species are not necessarily following the general “stress-tolerator” syndrome.” Meaning?
More on that cassava-problems-will-get-worse-with-climate-change thing from CIAT.
More on that beer-will-save-East-African-agriculture-from-drought thing.
Two of the Wise Men to rescue “poverty-stricken Ethiopian communities.”
F. H. King’s Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan: The backstory. Via.
Presenting South Korea’s genebank.

September 5, 2011September 5, 2011

Nibbles: IRRI, Palestinian genebanks, Non-dairy ice-cream, Community genebanks, Goat racing, Millions Fed, Seed relief, Gametophytic incompatibilityd, Seed relief, Beer

IRRI working to adapt rice to climate change, thanks to genebank.
Palestine gets a genebank. And genebankers, thanks to ICARDA.
Lupin ice-cream. Sounds yummie.
Ethio Organic Seed Action “trains farmers in the use of traditional seeds.” I doubt it, but the stuff on community genebanks is nice.
Goat racing in Uganda. Where are the photos?
IFPRI publishes companion volume to Millions Fed.
Vouching for seed vouchers.
Breeding anti-GMO maize. Well, kinda.
“Beer could provide lifeline for South Sudan’s small farmers.” I know how they feel.

September 2, 2011November 28, 2017

Nibbles: Refugia, Mann, Tree pix, Sparing v sharing, Lethal yellowing, Value chains, Coral sun-blocking, GlobalHort, Gravenstein, Pirate agrobiodiversity

How species survive climate change.
Charles C. Mann, author of great books on pre-Columbian America and the consequences of the Columbian Exchange, interviewed.
Dreamy pictures of old British trees.
“Protecting wild species may require growing more food on less land.” Great press release headlines of our times. Fortunately Mongabay has a discussion.
Coconut lethal yellowing wreaking havoc in Mozambique.
What makes a good food value chain?
Boffins want to re-activate coral genes in temperate plants to stop them getting sunstroke. Or something.
Old friend engaged by GlobalHort to work on position paper on “Promoting Agrobiodiversity for International Development: A Rationale and Roadmap for Collective Action”. Go, Hannah.
Grapes vs apples in Sonoma County.
Aaargh, pirates smoked like chimneys and drank like fish. Well I never. Anyway, nice to see them making full use of the local agrobiodiversity products.

September 1, 2011September 1, 2011

UK genebank on BBC Radio 4

Mike Ambrose manages the UK’s largest seed collection based at the John Innes Centre in Norwich.

With a collection of 25,000 seeds from around the world, he tells Caz how looking into the past helps meet the ‘wish-list’ criteria of plant breeders today.

That’s from the Programme Details for this morning’s Farming Today, on BBC Radio 4. I’m sure they have more than 25,000 seeds, but that’s just a quibble. ¹ Did Mike Ambrose really say that the John Innes genebank has seen a 7% year-on-year increase in requests for seed? How much of that went to farmers, I wonder, rather than to breeders.