- Ordering pizza on your iPhone? Would you like germplasm with that? Thanks, Samy.
- The banana commodity chain unpacked (check out the “brief” too). Thanks, Mary.
Nibbles: Potato, Cheese, Edible landscapes, Apples, Bees, Cacao, Vegetables
- The Guardian has a leader on the potato. Please let this year end soon. And thanks, Danny.
- Lucy Appleby RIP.
- Inner city farming in the UK.
- Gary Nabhan on where apples came from, and where they’re going. And more. Thanks again, Danny!
- Tracking bees’ response to climate change by satellite.
- Mars thinks cacao biodiversity is important. No news from Earth.
- The “keyhole gardens” of Lesotho.
Talking about Vavilov
The New York Botanical Garden hosted a World Science Festival panel discussion about Nikolai Vavilov on 31 May. The moderator, Carl Zimmer, has a video of a conversation with co-panelist Peter Pringle on his blog. ((Later: Ok. actually, the video is at bloggingheads, but there’s a link from Zimmer’s blog, The Loom.)) Pringle is the author of The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov.
Later stiil: Check out the comment from Cary Fowler on Svalbard, though.
It’s all interconnected
I like trying to see the world through other people’s eyes. That’s why I’ve been skimming the blog of Thomas P.M. Barnett, ever since he gave one of the greatest TedTalks I have ever watched. He looks at food as a military strategist, but one who is a leading thinker of new approaches to conflict. I wonder what you’ll think of this headline from his blog:
Urbanization yields globalization yields rising income yields more food demand yields bigger farms yields more migration to cities yields …
A really interesting and really stimulating take on one future of food production. And while we’re on the subject, how about this:
Consumption preferences for genetically heterogeneous varieties, supported by the market either directly or indirectly, are what seems to be key in biodiversity preservation.
That’s the conclusion of a post from the blog at RMAP (Resource Management in Asia-Pacific). Maylee Thavat discusses local seed systems and subsistence farmers, and how the two interact. I think there’s a fundamental issue here, and that’s the distinction between growing food that you and those you interact directly with may eat, and growing something that you sell (in order to buy food). Nor do I think it is limited to subsistence farmers. I’ve talked to industrialized farmers growing hundreds of hectares of potato varieties for the supermarkets who wouldn’t dream of eating the food they sell. They have a couple of rows of a decent variety out the back for their own use.
Maybe you’ve had similar experiences?
Why is biodiversity important?
People from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Albaeco interviewed researchers to get usable answers to important questions. They asked Professor Gretchen Daily, of Stanford University, to tackle “Why is biodiversity important?”. Watch her reply here. She gets going at about 1’15”. Could you do better?