Category: Information

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Nibbles: Pavlovsk, Baobab hybridization, Jackfruit, Vavilovia, Cowpea education, Lead, Bees, Banana wilt, Dariy cows, Pavlovsk, Drylands, School gardens, Genetic diversity in botanic gardens

  • The value of Pavlovsk. Jeremy delivers a slap.
  • CIRAD on kinky sex among the baobabs.
  • “I had never heard that there were distinct varieties of the jackfruit, although of course such a thing was reasonable, so I naturally wanted very much to taste one.” Naturally.
  • Wild relative of pea gets a weird hybrid in-ex situ conservation treatment.
  • A Cowpea Story, an illustrative children’s book by Vicky Inniss-Palmer, tells the hopeful story of a cowpea named Catalina and her struggle to overcome illness and disease with the help of scientists. Meanwhile, scientists meet.
  • Urban gardeners, beware lead. And nurture your pollinators.
  • Reading this, anyone would think nobody had ever researched banana Xanthomonas wilt.
  • Improved dairying in Kenya.
  • Vavilov Institute’s comprehensive update on Pavlovsk.
  • ICRISAT to put in place new market-oriented strategy which will use a “systems perspective in setting our priorities to ensure that all important issues along the dryland agriculture value chain are addressed.”
  • Meanwhile, ASARECA asks for ideas on how to intensify one of those dryland systems in the face of climate change.
  • ICIMOD promotes herbal gardens in schools.
  • Botanic gardens get wrists slapped over their inattention to genetics.
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Viva the agrobiodiversity revolution

A final dispatch from the front lines of agrobiodiversity conservation and use. That is, the 6th Henry A. Wallace/CATIE Inter-American Scientific Conference on “Agrobiodiversity in Mesoamerica — From Genes to Landscapes” at CATIE in Costa Rica.

The participants at the last day of the 6th Wallace Symposium shared a warm glow. The people who I chanced to talk to all raved about the conference. Although agrobiodiversity suffers from being a vague term, it has the attractive ability to bring together a crowd of scientists from worldwide institutes, who obviously see great relevance in each other’s research. Everyone can appreciate the needs of farmers for a suite of integrated and sustainable options, including biodiversity at all scales, to enable them to cope with markets, pests and diseases, soils, climate, and — maybe most importantly — changes.

CATIE is in a prime position to integrate options with its stronghold in forest and agroecology research, watershed management, enterprise development and its international collections of cacao, coffee, peach palm and many other crops. Dr Ronnie De Camino, CATIE’s Deputy Director, stressed to the audience that the drivers of change are not slowing down and our actions are too slow. What is needed is a revolution. After this conference, I will certainly be looking to CATIE and the Mesoamerican region to lead the way in this agrobiodiversity revolution.

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Worthy of support?

Global Giving, mentioned yesterday as a possible source of funds, is running a Global Open Challenge: projects have 30 days in which to secure themselves a spot on Global Giving’s roster of projects. And there are 3 days left. So just for fun, I skimmed through 150 projects to find those that are directly connected with agriculture, ignoring some that might be borderline, such as nutrition projects. Here’s the list:

Personally, I wouldn’t support this last one, because it describes Moringa and amaranth as “super-foods”. They’re good, but to pin your hopes for “a long term solution to poverty, malnutrition & food insecurity” on two species — any two species — is to miss the point comprehensively.