- Kenya to bioprospect?
- Plant idioms explored.
- Be evil. Save seeds and spread them around.
- Get ready for the London Potato Fair 25th January. Via.
- GRAIN positive that Nerica is bad for Africa.
- Shinier cropland to cool the planet? More from the author.
- Profiting from fish by not fishing is illegal?
Another competition
News just in of a film competition. Trouble is, entries close on 31 January 2009. So, you’ve either already made the film, or you are a seasoned professional who can crank out finished product in 10 days or so. Either way, we say: “Go for it”.
Film-makers and new media artists across the Asia Pacific region are invited to enter their audio-visual creations for this award recognising excellence in films on rice-related issues. Presented by Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP), TVE Asia Pacific (TVEAP), and Public Media Agency (PMA) of Malaysia, the competition is open to both fictional and factual films on the theme of Asia’s rice heritage and the threats it faces in this era of globalisation.
The films may have been produced using professional video, home video, mobile phones or cinematic equipment. They may be in any of these formats or genres: 2D animation, 3D animation, songs, short drama, satire, adaptations of folk culture, or documentary. They need to have been made after January 1 2008. The winner will receive US$2,000, a plaque, and a certificate.
Blurb from Communications Initiative. Full details from PAN AP’s web site. Can’t think why they didn’t think to publicise the competition through us.
Nibbles: Buffalo, Fish
- Man hunts buffalo, man writes book, Economist reviews book.
- Last week’s Economist had a special on The Sea. Chart on fish.
Tomato diversity in Google Earth
Here’s a fun thing. There’s a group pool on Flickr, the photo sharing site, called “tomatoes!” ((And also similar pools for lots of other plants.)) All kinds of pictures of all kinds of tomatoes, and very beautiful is all that diversity to look at too. But you can do more. Like for example map where the photos were taken (assuming the photographer uploaded a georeference). Which could give you a snapshot of where tomatoes are grown or consumed — or maybe just particularly loved. You can also generate a kml file. Here’s what you get when you view it in Google Earth:
Haven’t quite worked it out. This doesn’t seem to be all the georeferenced tomato photos from Europe in the group. Maybe just the latest to be uploaded. But I can’t help thinking this is a great way of displaying the geographic distribution of agricultural biodiversity.
Nibbles: Earth, Cheese, Silkworms, Biodiversity, Food, Cows, Pigs, Blog, Oysters, Organic
- Stunning images of Earth from space. Direct agricultural (biodiversity) interest at 3, 6 and 15.
- A cheese that’s full of agrobiodiversity. In more ways than one.
- Agrobiodiversity useful in space. And from space.
- Biodiversity in Africa. Agriculture mentioned, and not just in a bad way. Nice maps too.
- Eggplants. Agrobiodiversity. Cooking. Sex. Video.
- Sad story of a farmer losing his cows. Not just cows, “the oldest pure breed on Earth.”
- Farmers bred colourful pigs for the sheer hell of it.
- CABI blog reviews 2008.
- Keeping oysters healthy is hard.
- Legendary breeder Khush says organic rice not a good idea.
- Variation Under Domestication. Darwin’s Origin blogged.