Information

August 12, 2009

Agricultural biodiversity and universities

Our friends and colleagues at Bioversity International have just published a 4-page briefing on Learning Agrobiodiversity: The importance of agricultural biodiversity and the role of universities. ¹ It gives an admirable summary of what agricultural biodiversity is, what it is good for, and what is happening to it. The main thrust, though, is to present the results of surveys of how agrobiodiversity features in university curricula.

Bottom line: not so well.

If you know of any courses that the authors may have missed, we’ll be happy to pass on any information. And if you’re moved to organize a course and are looking for guest lecturers, we can probably help there too.

August 12, 2009August 13, 2009

Nibbles: Climate change, IPR, Urban ag * 2, Lumpers, Fodder, Andes map

The Arid Lands Information Network has published a briefing on Climate change and the threat to African food security.
Free Seeds, Not Free Beer. A paper on intellectual property rights. Luigi asks: Why not both?
Urban farming around the world, a slideshow. No wonder Back40 thinks its all hobby or hack.
More urban farms in the US. Enough already!
See the spud behind the Irish Potato Famine. Today. In Guelph. That’s Canada.
Napier Stunt Disease threat to Ugandan milk production.
The Ecosystems Map of the Northern and Central Andes is out.

August 10, 2009August 11, 2009

Nibbles: Organocontroversy, Small farms, Organic can feed world, Cashmere

Are Organic Veggies Better for You? Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, it’s a useless debate. Yay!
Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty. Yay!
“Study after study show that organic techniques can provide much more food per acre in developing countries than conventional chemical-based agriculture.” Define organic.
Fashionistas driving desertification in Mongolia.

August 8, 2009August 8, 2009

Chicomecoatl the Maize Goddess restored

Click on the photo to find out more.

August 7, 2009August 7, 2009

Towards an ecologically-informed agriculture

What we’ve tried to do on a couple of occasions is look at conferences or publications of perhaps only slight overall agrobiodiversity interest and highlight the little bits that do fit here. So it’s nice when someone does it for us. The Ecological Society of America‘s 94th Annual Meeting is currently on in Albuquerque, New Mexico and, among all the other stuff, there’s a session presenting “ideas on how our agricultural practices can take lessons from natural environments.” Fortunately, EurekAlert is there, with summaries of presentations on turning annual crops into perennials, landscape diversity and pest enemies, and reduced tilling and soil microbe diversity. ESA has a blog, EcoTone, as well as a stable of journals. Nature’s blogger is also at the conference.