The stuff that comes out of olive mills after the oil has been extracted is difficult to deal with. It ought to be a good addition to soils, increasing organic matter and other good qualities. But because it is a rather slimy sludge, it doesn’t decompose well. It is often composed by mixing half and half with sheep litter, and in a recent experiment, grape stems were added too. The result was faster, better compost. Olio, pecorino e grappa. Good for you, good for the land.
Nibbles: Monsanto, Carnival, Recycling, Kelp, Land lease, Pinole
- Monsanto under anti-trust investigation in US. h/t Our man in the policy maelstrom, Michael.
- Scientia Pro Publica, latest edition.
- From the SPP carnival, a recycled doormat saves edible marine biodiversity.
- Kelp farming in Maine. h/t Sadie Jane.
- “Is there such a thing as Agro-Imperialism?” we’ll let you know when we’ve read this long article. h/t Resilience Science
- This is the jerky of the plant kingdom. For those who don’t know, this is the jerky of the animal kingdom.
Nibbles: Climate change, Blog, Language, Language Again, IT,
- Indigenous people take video evidence to Copenhagen. The big site. (Cool map.)
- Congratulations to Biofortified, winners of an interview with foodie god Michael Pollan (and $1500).
- What colour is a banana? Linguist understands diversity, everyone else fails.
- And an orange?
- Google rescued my potato harvest. Long, dull article about a short, sharp story.
Bent Skovmand remembered
A Facebook post by Dag Endresen of NordGen alerted me to the recent publication of the biography of Bent Skovmand, entitled The Viking in the Wheat Field: A Scientist’s Struggle to Preserve the World’s Harvest. Bent Skovmand (1945-2007), a student of Norman Borlaug, was a very influential figure in the world of conservation and use of crop genetic resources in general, and of wheat in particular. The director of the Nordic Gene Bank (now NordGen) when he died, the books he kept in his office are touchingly maintained at NordGen’s Alnarp headquarters as a separate collection. I’ll be trying to get hold of the book.
The cattle of the Yakuts have their day in the sun at last
Juha Kantanen, a research scientist at MTT Agrifood Research Finland, had an announcement out on the DAD-Net discussion forum a couple of days ago which reproduced an MTT press release on what sounds like a fascinating book, Sakha Ynaga — Cattle of the Yakuts.
Siberia’s last remaining indigenous breed of domestic cattle, the Sakha Ynaga, or Yakutian cattle, inhabit the lands surrounding the Lena River in Russia’s remote Sakha Republic (Yakutia). During the soviet era, the Yakutian cattle were driven to virtual extinction, but thanks to dogged preservation efforts this remarkable, hardy breed has endured to the present day.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute explored the genetic uniqueness of the Yakutian cattle and the effect of social and cultural factors on the survival of the breed through periods of major upheaval in Russia’s history. The findings of this insightful study have now been published in the book Sakha Ynaga — Cattle of the Yakuts. The book champions the call for preservation of biodiversity, at a time when countless indigenous breeds around the world are facing the brink of extinction.
The book can be ordered from Bookstore Tiedekirja.