- The perils of working with agrobiodiversity products.
- “The Nejdi sheep of today are much more beautiful than those of 10 years ago.”
Nibbles: Creole cooking, Cattle, Greenhouses, Cartograms
- Seychelles’ “living botanical herbarium of Creole Culture.”
- Kerala tries to save Vechur cattle.
- Terra Madre day 3: Tom ♥ Vandana.
- Pix of how intelligent greenhouses can be used to grow huge vegetables. I wonder if these technique can be applied to regenerating accessions in genebanks
- Don’t you just love cartograms?
Nibbles: Vege-juice, Urban livestock, Seeds, Slow Food
- Drink vegetable diversity for better nutrition. Jeremy sez: “Too salty”. And asks: “Who paid?”
- “So why isn’t everyone living this locavore dream of having organic, free-range eggs for nearly nothing, right from their own backyard? Well, for one thing, it’s illegal.”
- Blogger Seed Network. Explained. Make it grow.
- Terra Madre, more notes from the Gristmill.
Nibbles: Cereal, Bushmeat, Aquaculture, Olive oil
- Neolithic parboiled bulgur wheat.
- Applying “catch shares” to bushmeat.
- The pros and cons of fish farming in Latin America.
- “It’s a masochistic business. Masochistic.”
Water hyacinth not so bad after all
Sure, the water hyacinth is a terrible weed on Lake Victoria. But, as I blogged last year, it does have some redeeming features, for example it can be used to make furniture. Now comes news that it can also be fed to animals, and that it shelters catfish fingerlings. ((Coincidentally, there was another heartwarming aquaculture piece from Africa in the news today.)) One man’s invasive weed is another woman’s income-earning opportunity. How long before it is officially classed as agrobiodiversity?
LATER: Ok, apologies. A comment alerted me to the fact that I had misread the article, and that hippo grass is not water hyacinth, but rather (probably) Echinochloa stagnina. The perils of common names. But the fact remains that people are making use of a plant that to many is a pest. The dividing line between useful agrobiodiversity and noxious weed can be hard to define. Thank you, Inoculated Mind.