- Tripping up trypanosomiasis: “It is a poverty fly.”
- Pumpkin patent squashed: “This is like trying to patent all trees with twisted limbs.”
- Indonesian bovines fingerprinted: “…the famous ‘racing bulls‘ from Madura descended from banteng cows.”
- Cropmobbing. Sounds like fun. Via.
Opposing the Egyptian pig cull
I posted my recent little note about the imminent disappearance of the Egyptian pig landrace called Baladi to DAD-Net, and it has generated quite a bit of feedback. The gist is that nobody thinks the cull is justified, and that conservation measures are urgently needed (freezing sperm and keeping it in liquid nitrogen and freezing or vitrifying embryos at the time of slaughter were mentioned). Especially since, surprisingly, the breed has never been properly characterized. An Egyptian researchers lamented this by saying that
characterization needs commitment and funds which are not readily available even for more economically important livestock species.
So that’s not unlike the case with crops, then. You can sign up to a petition to stop the cull.
The Welsh pony story gets a happy ending, maybe
I mentioned earlier that DAD-Net is holding an e-consultation on threats to livestock diversity. There was a bit of discussion on the nature of the threats last week. One of the more interesting contributions came from Dafydd Pilling of the animal genetic resources group at FAO. He offered “an example in which the threat does not correspond exactly to any of the categories listed in the background document.”
The threat in question is the financial burden imposed on the owners of mountain ponies by the EU “horse passport†scheme. The story can be traced by visiting each of the following web pages in turn:
Passport threat to wild ponies
Time running out for wild ponies
Ponies saved from passport threat
The problem goes back to 2004, and we noted it two years ago, but not the dénouement.
Three years ago the European Union passed a law that all such animals had to have a passport and be tagged. This costs £50 per animal, and at that time the ponies were only worth around £15 each so it just wasn’t going to be financially viable for us to keep protecting them.
Then seven local farmers got together, managed to secure Objective One funding and set up the Carneddau Ponies Association to fund and carry out this work.
…
We also want them classed as a rare breed, which would allow us to sell a group on one passport instead of individually.
Looks like livestock diversity is no less at risk from some EU regulation than the crop kind. Although Dr Pilling does add that “EU rules on ear tagging of cattle had been amended” when they were found to pose “a threat to extensive livestock management practices” in Europe. I’ll try to find out more about that one.
High-altitude honey
Timothy Allen, a photographer for the BBC’s Human Planet programme, has some wonderful pictures on his site showing people and their activities in all their diversity. Last week was the turn of honey-gathering by the Bayaka people of the Central African Republic. Let’s just say you need a head for heights.
Nibbles: Invasives, Climate change^2, Bananas, Fibres
- Songs raise awareness about aquatic invasive species. Jeremy says: Kill me now.
- Long, long post about climate change in Africa. Part 2 “coming soon”.
- Yemen prepares for climate change. Need a “strategy for the promotion of rain-fed agriculture”.
- Bananas from Iceland … Jeremy says: I don’t get it.
- New Agriculturist focuses on natural fibres.