- Sierra Leone gets back to (rural) work.
- Rachel Laudan not keen on UNESCO protecting culinary traditions.
- Value chains are hard.
- Dual-purpose sorghum in the CGIAR spotlight.
- Andy does cassava. Looks like he may need to buy a house in Bellagio.
- Latest Animal Genetic Resources is out. In other news, there’s an international journal called Animal Genetic Resources.
Your Sunday chicken
There’s an interesting little film from the Ecologist Film Unit over at The Guardian, about the Giriraja chicken breed. ((I’d embed the movie, but I can’t see how.)) It’s an interesting take on an old story; that a little improvement to local resources can make a huge difference to the lives of poor rural families.
Not a lot of detail in the film; essentially it seems that a local breed of chicken known as the Giriraja, or Forest King, has been worked on by veterinarians at Bangalore University of Agricultural Sciences. They’re giving (selling?) chicks and advice to poor villagers, who are eating better and earning more.
Nothing wrong with that, except that the film puts all this in contrast to the industrialised chicken operations that are blooming in India, while at the same time seeming to suggest that this one breed could be the answer for poor people everywhere. That would be no better than industrial chickens. What poor people need, of course, is help to make better use of their own local chickens. And that is happening in all sorts of places: Uganda, Italy and Indonesia, for example
Nibbles: African data, Wild beans, Wild chickens, Heirloom tomatoes, Wild wheat
- African data centre planned.
- “…genetic variability and phenotypic plasticity of plant anti-herbivore defences allow plant populations to rapidly respond to changing environmental conditions.” In a crop wild relative, no less.
- The genetics of chicken domestication. I’d like to see the results of those crosses.
- Do you have these heirloom tomatoes?
- Getting increased heat tolerance from a wild relative into wheat.
Toma cheese, phone home
“It’s not difficult,” Dr Lombardi said. “What is more difficult is to deliver the product the consumer wants, something not perfect, but with no big flaws either.”
What’s not difficult? To stick an RFID chip and a printed code on the wrapper of a cheese. The code can be read by a smartphone and links the cheese lover “to a phone-optimised website that allows them to browse the information registered about the cheese”.
Matt reports from Terra Madre on a scheme that hopes to add value to Europe’s vast diversity of cheeses and the breeds and ecosystems that produce in a way that even I can understand (and use).
Nibbles: COP 10, Sunflowers, Salad silliness
- COP10 sees “Fast progress in ‘Agricultural Biodiversity'” it says here.
- Sunflower weeds in Europe derived from crop-wild relative matings.
- Heritage meat and wheat to eat. In Tucson, Arizona.
- Top 10 Men With Salad Names.