- Biogeographic Information System Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations. Not agrobiodiversity by any stretch but stunning all the same, and a clarion call to our community to sort out Genebank Database Hell, surely.
- Traditional paddies as ecosystems. Great ones, too.
- Title says “seed banks susceptible to sham samples,” text says not really, and maybe it doesn’t matter much anyway. Our take from a few days ago.
- China’s millet useful in Africa. Which millet? Your guess is as good as mine.
- Cherimoya going seedless.
- Annex 1 list of International Treaty on PGRFA to expand? Well, maybe. Whatever, wow.
- Lecture materials on conservation and use of animal genetic resources.
- The ancient fast foods of Greece.
- Conserving heirloom apples. Nice gig if you can get it.
Nibbles: Mead, Treaty, Zoonoses, Flowery margins, Post-doc, Sacred Groves, Posters, Maize in Africa.
- Mead, part 4. You can find 1-3 yourselves.
- Plant genetic resources key to food security. The Jakarta Post gets it.
- Long, complex post from ILRI on zoonoses; diseases that infect people and animals.
- What are all the flowers for? The Provincial Agricultural Chamber of East Flanders seeks answers. h/t PAR.
- Wanna do a post-doc on Comprehensive modelling of agro-biodiversity in relation to seed exchange networks?
- Sacred groves threatened, by Times of India.
- Fabulous botanical posters, many featuring useful species, and all useful information. Of course tomatoes are fruits.
- I meant to write in detail about how Untapped crop data from Africa predicts corn peril if temperatures rise, but you know, life intervened.
Saving the camel through dung
A post on DAD-Net alerts us to a successful attempt to halt the decline in camel numbers in Rajasthan (not that the problem is completely resolved, as another post points out).
A five year effort by an Indian non-government organisation to halt the decline of the camel population in Western Rajasthan (India) has borne fruit: in the district of Jaisalmer, where the project is located, camel numbers increased by 26.5% between 2006 and 2011. In all other districts of Rajasthan, the camel population continued its quick decline, according to the latest government data. Camel breeders attributed the increase in their herds to a variety of interventions by the project: Quick response to disease outbreaks and easy availability of genuine medicines to control diseases, such as mange — a highly contagious skin ailment that can lead to death if neglected. Other measures were the prosecution of camel thefts by a task force and prevention of accidents between camels and cars by the setting up of road signs. An important aspect was a change in perception about the economic potential of camels, as the project that is implemented by Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan and supported by the Ford Foundation placed emphasis on developing a range of new products from the camel. These include camel milk and ice cream, as well as luxury items made from camel wool, such as shawls, bags, caps and rugs. These products are in various stages of reaching the market. A third product is “Biocultural paper” which is actually paper made from camel dung that contains the seeds and fibres of up to 36 plants that camels graze on. A factory for this handmade paper will be inaugurated in Sadri (Rajasthan) on 16th March in the presence of various dignitaries and media persons.
Ilse Koehler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, and the director of LPP’s Indian organization Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, Hanwant Singh Rathore, describe some of these efforts to market camel products in this video.
Cloven hoofed agrobiodiversity in W1
An intriguing photo by a Flickr contact set off a spate of googling which quickly led to the discovery that there was a “Savile Row Field Day” in October last year, part of a Campaign for Wool. The prime locality in central London was given over to a flock of Exmoor Horn and Bowmont sheep. It’s not exactly groundbreaking (as it were), as far as marketing ploys go, but I wish I’d been there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0LtQBwXW1sNibbles: Micronutrients, Population, Opium, Nixtamalization, Chocolate, Seed swap, Dog domestication, Meeting, Biofuel failure, Mesquite
- “Organic management practices appear to result in elevated levels of grain micronutrient concentration.” By no means the whole story.
- Tom too takes The Economist to task.
- Afghanistan’s opium growers. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
- Nixtamalization for the rest of us. More than you could ever want to know. Rye tortillas!
- Chocolate began with leftover beer? Seems unlikely.
- Take the fight to the monster’s lair. Swap seeds in Brussels. h/t Patrick.
- Dogs or dholes? Yeah I didn’t know what they were either.
- There was a workshop on “Seed System and Climate Change” in Bhutan a month ago.
- Big biofuel project in Tanzania bites the dust. And the land they “leased,” what happened to that?
- Ancient grinding holes. Might mesquite be another edible never domesticated?