- Michael Halewood in Genebank Policy Hell.
- Vavilov in Genebank Database Hell.
- A guide through Clonal Crops Conservation Hell.
- Pakistan contemplates genebank for carp “pure line and improved stairs for SAARC countries.” Bicycles next, I suppose. But will Ghana follow suit?
- Meanwhile across the border, India is putting resources into livestock conservation at both national and state level.
- Italian broccoli variety moves to Florida and makes the big time.
- And ancient Egyptian gardens make the big time in Amsterdam. Too bad it wont be possible to exchange seeds.
- I bet those ancient Egyptians had taro. They certainly had wheat and barley.
- But not quinoa, alas, despite what Thor Heyerdahl might have thought.
Brainfood: Cattle, Coffee pest management
- Modern Taurine Cattle descended from small number of Near-Eastern founders. Only 80 founding females, so it was difficult.
- Implementing an Integrated Pest Management Program for Coffee Berry Borer in a Specialty Coffee Plantation in Colombia. It wasn’t easy, and it took time, but it worked; less pesticides, more predators, higher quality beans.
Nibbles: Communications, Economics, Nutrition, Conservation
- What words should we use? “[B]est management practices” or “more casual words like local, family-owned and farmer”.
- Words like “farming”. How to make a living “farming” without leaving your armchair. Via.
- Hungry work, that. If only I had a slice of acorn-finished pork to finish.
- Someone else who would like that: where in the world is Luigi Guarino? Wherever “it is imperative that genetic diversity is maintained for posterity.”
Nibbles: Women, Diplomats, Murderers, Speculators, Brainiacs, Participators, Cartographers, Foodographers, Native American agrobiodiversity
- Mo’ women power, mo’ better food security. ILRI leads the pack of CGIAR centres, but there’s loads of stuff elsewhere.
- British diplomat ponders the value of biodiversity.
- Less than a human life, at least in some parts of Brazil.
- Speaking (cynically) of values and prices, informed speculation on speculators is at hand.
- Berries make you brainy; so I guess that reporter hasn’t eaten any lately.
- You too can determine future-oriented research pathways for food security in East Africa, and no need to pig out on berries.
- A kinda sorta interactive map of European agricultural biodiversity. Is it sustainable?
- That map may need a special section for Florence, if one person’s photographic Florentine feast is anything to go by.
- If there were a similar map for the US, it would probably include this kind of thing from the Cherokee.
Nibbles: Eyzaguirre speaks, Hunger, India in Africa, Aquaculture, Mutation breeding, Climate info, Micronutrients, Peanuts, Crops from space, CIMMYT in Africa, Cassava beer, Heirloom onion, Coffee research, Newton’s apple, Gastronomica
- An anthropologists speaks about landscapes.
- ILRI says: “Landscapes, I’ve got your landscapes right here.”
- India makes its play for African agricultural landscapes. I hope there will be scorecards and women. And access to Indian genebank holdings…
- Will there be fish though?
- And will India be pushing its mutation-bred varieties in Africa? Not that there’s anything wrong with them.
- Or using climate information?
- Or mining technology for that matter.
- Surely there will be dual-purpose groundnuts.
- Doesn’t India have a satellite?
Meanwhile, CIMMYT is making its own African play. Maybe some of the stuff it is doing there could be useful in India too?Two dead linksAfrica could teach India some other stuff too.Dead link.- Pretty sure this nearly-extinct-onion-rescued story is totally irrelevant to both India and Africa.
- Unlike coffee research.
- I don’t suppose I can interest anyone in a not very nice tasting, disease-prone but historical apple?
- And speaking of historical connections… Well that was quite a journey.