Information

August 5, 2008

Paean to singular agricultures

A puff piece in EurekAlert alerted me to what looks to be a very interesting book about the wonderful world of traditional agriculture:

These forms of agriculture are often highly idiosyncratic and take up only a tiny portion of the Earth’s total cultivated surface. Yet they stand out owing to their ability to adapt to a constantly changing natural environment and to the diversity of farming practices they adopt.

Problem is, no details on the book are given: no title, no authors. Fortunately, this led me to the original IRD release, in French. Which led me to the book itself, though again details on the book are at a premium, I must say.

August 5, 2008August 5, 2008

Nibbles: Economics, Agricultural origins, Slow Food, Pollinators, India

An economist designs a sustainable agricultural system. Good news: it includes genebanks, if only as an additional thought.
Peruvian rock art marks transition between hunting/gathering and agriculture.
A food garden on the White House lawn? Via Slow Food Nation, get your tickets quick. And follow the blog. Thanks, Colinski, and have a good time there.
“The total economic value of pollination worldwide amounted to â‚¬153 billion, which represented 9.5% of the value of the world agricultural production used for human food in 2005.”
“I want the farmers to get the message that what we are doing, what they will be doing when they embrace natural farming, is revolutionary.”

August 4, 2008

Plant Breeding Electronic Journal Club launched

Just in from GBIP.

The GIPB Knowledge Resource Center is launching the Plant Breeding Electronic Journal Club, a virtual place that allows communities to meet and critically evaluate plant breeding and related fields’ articles in the scientific literature.

This e-Journal Club is directed to professionals and students interested in discussing relevant plant breeding themes and issues.Â Â Its majors objectives are to help improve skills of understanding and debating current topics of interest to plant breeding and to promote intellectually stimulating andÂ professionally rewarding exchange with colleagues from around the world.

This e-Journal Club will use Fireboard, a forum component fully integrated to the GIPB website, which allows implementation of many e-Journal Club groups simultaneously. Dr. Fred Bliss kindly agreed to serve as the convener of this first GIPB e-Journal Club, which will discuss the article â€œQuantitativeÂ Genetics, Genomics, and the Future of Plant Breedingâ€ by Dr. Bruce Walsh.

In order to participate you just need to follow the instructions in the front page of the GIPB website.Â Registration is now opened and the e-Journal Club will start on Wednesday, 6 August 2008.

Please, note that discussion in this first e-Journal Club will be held in English, but proposals of conveners willing to start e-Journal Clubs in other languages can be sent to gipb@fao.org.

August 4, 2008August 4, 2008

Nibbles: Qat, Tomato, Climate change squared, Documentation, Food diaspora, Mapping Africa, Gout, Chicken origins, HealthMap, Olive, Crop mixtures

Catha edulis bad for Yemen economy. Having been waved a gun at by a qat-chewing Somali teenager, I can testify it’s bad for other things as well.
Amy Goldman on the heirloom tomato.
Biology Letters special feature on climate change and biodiversity.
And more on climate change, this time its likely effect on livelihoods.
All you ever wanted to know about plant genetic resources conservation in Germany.
“Isnâ€™t it crazy to think that everything we eat or use that comes from plants at one time grew completely wild?” Well, not so much.
Africa: Atlas of Our Changing Environment. (Watch out, very large file.)
Another reason not to drink sugary soft drinks: gout. Coconut water anyone?
Pre-Columbian Chilean chickens could have come from anywhere, not just Polynesia.
Mapping diseases.
A 12th century olive genebank in Morocco.
Traditional Ethiopian barley/wheat mixtures (hanfets) have some advantages over pure stands.

July 30, 2008

Biodiversity Festival

This just in from Crocevia.

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Rome. We are very proud to present you the fifth edition of the International Audiovisual Festival on Biodiversity, a funded project of Centro Internazionale Crocevia taking place in Rome on 24th and 25th October.

The Festival was born to promote experiences and activities that NGOs and local partners worldwide are carrying out to protect the environment and, in particular, its biodiversity. During the festival, national and international documentaries related to the environment, biodiversity and food sovereignty will be presented, followed by performances of local artists famous for their social commitment and special attention they give to the local traditions.

For the first time this year, the participating documentaries will be also available on-line on ARCOIRIS TV http://www.arcoiris.tv/. During two weeks before the official event in Rome, the audience will thus have the chance to see the videos and participate at the festival by choosing their favourite documentary.

We would like you to promote among your partners or in your website the festival and video request, as we would be pleased to include your last works in our event. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further request or info.

Best regards,

Centro Internazionale Crocevia