New documentary traces fate of US maize harvest.
Mapping hunger
FAO animated map of undernourishment. Via CABI.
Garden Mosaics
Garden Mosaics is “a science education and outreach program based at Cornell University that has been thriving in more than two dozen cities” in the US and has recently spread to South Africa. Marianne Krasny, a professor at Cornell, kept a blog of her 2006 trip to southern Africa. I wonder what they think about urban fruit gleaning…
Oekologie 10 is up
The latest issue of Oekologie, a blog carnival, is up at Laelaps. ((And thanks, Brian, for accepting a late entry.)) Some choice gems there in our line of work. 21st Century Citizen has a list of “six classic books on organic growing” that is (seeks delicate word) idiosyncratic. There are a couple in there that I would definitely agree with. A couple that I personally would ditch in favour of others. And a couple that I haven’t read. But hey! It’s her list. Maybe some day I’ll do my own. Then there’s a good post from Living the Scientific Life about a research paper suggesting that African farmers use African bees to manage African elephants. The idea is full of holes, as the authors ((One of them an old colleague. Hey Fritz, how’s things?)) are the first to admit, but nevertheless an interesting approach to a difficult problem.
Creating and curing obesity
Better late than never, I guess. I’ve only just realized that the September issue of Scientific American was entitled Feast and Famine, and juxtaposed the ironic twin killer trends of hunger and obesity. Most of the material is unfortunately behind a paywall, but I have borrowed a hardcopy from a colleague and will be reading through it in the near future. If you’ve already done so and have any comments on what the various high-profile authors involved say about agrobiodiversity, let us know. One commentator has said:
This issue of Scientific American tells us there’s money to be made by creating and then curing obesity. That’s what the science approach to obesity is about and what the prevention-based approach is up against. ((I’ve borrowed my title from this article.))
Do you agree with this take?