Information

June 15, 2007

New course

Teaching researchers to talk to farmersÂ in East Africa.

June 13, 2007

Armenian apricots

The Ministry of Agriculture in Yeravan is organizing an internationalÂ conference on the Armenian apricot.

June 12, 2007

African biotech

SciDevNet’s roundup of agri-biotech in Africa is online.

June 11, 2007June 12, 2007

The Eleventh regular session of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA-11) is on in Rome all this week. You can follow the deliberations day by day courtesy of IISD. Better than being there. No, really.

Worldwatch Institute is also taking an interest.

And of course the agenda and all the background documentation are online.

June 11, 2007June 11, 2007

Workshop on knowledge management and communication

From IAALD, news of a workshop sponsored by GTZ and FAO, on “Communicating Knowledge: From good practice to systematic change.” The conference web site gives access to the Agenda and Papers, and at first glance there doesn’t seem to be anything about blogs or blogging. Maybe the participants will raise the topic. It does seem an odd omission, but maybe I’m biassed.

1. What has agrobiodiversity ever done for us? Kent Nnadozie of the Plant Treaty lays it out.
2. Michael Frei of the HealthyDiets4Africa project doesn’t need it laid out.
3. Neither do the people who awarded a prize to Charlotte Allender of the UK Vegetable Genebank.
4. What has the US National Plant Germplasm System ever done for anyone? The Guardian, the NY Times and NPR News lay it out. I guess someone in D.C. needs it laid out, but will it make any difference?
5. Everyone: Potatoes in Florida! Breeders: No problem. NPGS: You called?
6. Here’s The Guardian again, but this time thinking it is making the case for not putting seeds in the fridge, whereas in fact it’s making the case for the complementarity of ex situ and on-farm conservation.
7. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s a couple of pieces on community seed banks in Guatemala.
8. Speaking of on-farm conservation, here’s the heart-warming story of Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles.
9. Meanwhile, the World Vegetable Centre opens a new genebank.
10. And Türkiye hosts an international, no less, olive genebank.
11. And genebanks can be so beautiful, like works of art. Former Tate Modern director Vicente Todolí lays out his citrus samples. I wonder what he could do with olives.
12. Botanic gardens are beautiful and often act a little bit like crop genebanks. Here’s an example from Portugal I stumbled onto recently, I forget how.
13. You know what I’d like to see? An international pepper genebank, that’s what. No, not the kind that might be in those Guatemalan community seedbanks or the WorldVeg genebank. This sort of pepper. Piper pepper.
14. I bet the ancient Egyptians had pepper. Egyptian archaeologist Mennat-Allah El Dorry lays out what else they had.
15. Maybe you could lay out world history using pepper. You can definitely do so using cacao and chocolate.
16. No, not using ancient DNA, but actually…
Published on April 4, 2025

Category: Information

New course

Armenian apricots

African biotech

FAO Commission meets

Workshop on knowledge management and communication