Want proof that sustainable agriculture is firmly on the radar of the mainstream press? Newsweek has a piece this week on how Andean potato farmers are adapting to climate change. While Time sings an ode to the American “urban agricultural boom.”
Fennel prices on the go
We have blogged a number of times about the use of mobile telephony to lubricate markets. But the examples have usually been from developing countries. Now here’s one from Italy. And no, I don’t want to get into a discussion about the development status of il Bel Paese. If you register with SMS Consumatori, you can send them a text message containing the name of a product and they’ll send you one back in seconds with the average prices of that product in different parts of the country.
I tried it, and it works. Today the retail cost of 1 kg of finocchio (fennel) was € 1.85 in the north and € 1.30 in the south, for example. If someone is selling something at what you think are inflated prices, you can report them online. The website has a graph of prices for each product over the past few days. And each product also has a sort of descriptive fiche, which even lists the main varieties for some fruits and vegetables, though the price is not disaggregated by variety, alas. Here’s the information on fennel varieties:
… il Bianco Perfezione (varietà precoce, la raccolta avviene in luglio e agosto), il Gigante di Napoli, il finocchio di Sicilia e il finocchio di Parma (varietà invernale, raccolta da settembre a dicembre). Ricordiamo inoltre il Bianco dolce di Firenze, il Finocchio di fracchia, e il Tondo romano. I venditori usano distinguere i finocchi in maschi e femmine: non c’è nulla di scientifico in questo, fanno semplicemente riferimento alla forma che, nel caso del maschio è tondeggiante, nella femmina più allungata.
Ok, I’ll translate:
… White Perfection (an early variety, harvested in July and August), Neapolitan Giant, Sicilian Fennel and Parma Fennel (a winter variety, harvested from September to December). Let us also remember Florentine Sweet White, Fracchia’s Fennel, and Roman Round. Sellers distinguish between male and female types, but there is nothing scientific about this, it simply refers to the shape, which is rounder in the male and more elongated in the female.
Plants don’t get enough respect
That’s not our view. Well, it is, but you know what I mean. It’s the view of über-blogger P.Z. Myers, the man with a cracker in his mouth and a price on his head. PZ stepped manfully into the breach when the scheduled compiler of the Tangled Bank Carnival of the Vanities was diagnosed with a serious illness ((Best of luck, Jeff.)) and so Tangled Bank 110 is back where it started, at PZ Myers’ Pharyngula.
Luigi’s rumination on La Zucca was apparently the “sole entry from the vast field of botany” and it wasn’t that long a post either.
There’s some stuff over there about birds and other animals that eat plants.
And if you think plants get short shrift, consider agriculture. sometimes we do feel we are wandering in the wilderness, but at least this Tangled Bank seems to have smoked out some quasi-useful comments on Luigi’s missing potato dish. So, welcome, and thanks again PZ.
An agricultural economist answers
You may remember that I pointed to Freakonomics Blog a few days ago because they had a nice little feature where people could ask an illustrious agricultural economist pointed questions. Well the answers are now up. Here’s my favourite one:
Q: Are there any good arguments that support farm subsidies?
A: No.
Actually that’s a bit unfair, there is more to the answer than that. Check it out. And let us know if you want something similar here on agrobiodiversity.
Roman capers
Couldn’t resist this shot the other evening. Those are capers clinging to the remains of the Ponte Rotto in Rome. Wonder if anyone ever collects them. Not so much hidden harvest as hard-to-reach harvest.