- Tofu, anyone?
- Plumcot, anyone?
- Guerrilla gardening, everyone!
- Green Revolution breadbasket drying up. ICRISAT has the answer. Well, sort of.
- BBC has a different answer. Trees can keep people alive in times of drought.
- More semi-naked chicks, this time in South Africa.
- Naked or otherwise, eat them to save them, with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.
Nibbles: Organocontroversy, Small farms, Organic can feed world, Cashmere
- Are Organic Veggies Better for You? Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, it’s a useless debate. Yay!
- Agroecology, Small Farms, and Food Sovereignty. Yay!
- “Study after study show that organic techniques can provide much more food per acre in developing countries than conventional chemical-based agriculture.” Define organic.
- Fashionistas driving desertification in Mongolia.
The latest on the results of the Egyptian pig cull
The BBC has done a follow-up to the story of the Egyptian pig cull. It’s been a disaster for many. Here’s one of the rubbish collectors — zabaleen — who were Cairo’s pig keepers:
I sold pigs twice a year. To pay for mending the car and the school fees for our three young children. There is no way I can replace that income.
There have also been health consequences, especially for children, and some people blame a rat infestation on the accumulating garbage that used to be fed to the pigs.
The government says farmers can restock – but only if the pigs are reared in a more modern farming environment on the outskirts of the city: where pigs are kept in isolation, where they can be slaughtered in a proper way and the meat cooled ready for market.
But the zabaleen say they cannot afford that.
Nibbles: Urban bees, Borlaug, Cotton, Income, Mammals, Human disease, Caribou, Chestnut, IRRI
- There are 227 bee species in New York City. Damn! But not enough known about the work they (and other pollinators) do in natural ecosystems, alas.
- Borlaug home to be National Historic Site?
- Archaeobotanist tackles Old World cotton.
- FAO suggests ways that small farmers can earn more. Various agrobiodiversity options.
- About 400 new mammal species discovered since 1993 (not 2005 as in the NY Times piece). Almost a 10% increase. Incredible. Who knew.
- But how many of them will give you nasty diseases?
- The caribou wont, I don’t think. And by the way, its recent decline is cyclical, so chill.
- Saving the American chestnut through sex. Via the new NWFP Digest.
- “The best thing IRRI can do for rice is to close down and give the seeds it has collected back to the farmers.” Yikes, easy, tiger! Via.
Calling Mythbusters!
So, drowning turkey chicks: is it a rural myth? Have your say.