- What’s good here? I love globalization.
- An organic oasis in Egypt.
- Today’s crop of the future: Salicornia.
- English lavender?
- Florida botanical garden collects plants threatened by climate change.
- “Los Delirios is a blend of Caturra, Typica, and Bourbon beans grown near Esteli, Nicaragua.”
- Fungus to help honey bees fight mites.
- “During our grandfathers’ time there were different types of grasses here, some for the cows and others for the goats and sheep. Now there’s no grass, the land has become barren.”
Nibbles: Afghanistan, Zucchini
- Support for small-scale private seed enterprises in Afghanistan. Including landraces?
- “It has no real taste of its own, piggybacking on whatever it is prepared with.”
What’s a dazzling urbanite like you doing in a rustic setting like this?
I heard an interesting programme on the BBC World Service last night about how middle class Chicagoans are buying shares in nearby farms. The farmers get money up front from them, rather than from banks who wouldn’t give them anyway, and the urbanites can hang out in a rustic setting and have fresh produce from a trusted source delivered weekly. Unfortunately, I can’t find the piece on the BBC website. However, there’s a NY Times article from a couple of weeks back that will do just as well. ((It’s also in the International Herald Tribune if you don’t like registering at the Times.)) The article says that this
… concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming.
Here’s one of the shareholders, retired computer consultant Steve Trisko, who likes weeding beets and tending tomatoes:
We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food.
Is this part of the back-to-the-future, small-is-beautiful vibe Jeremy was talking up a few posts back?
An agricultural economist answers
You may remember that I pointed to Freakonomics Blog a few days ago because they had a nice little feature where people could ask an illustrious agricultural economist pointed questions. Well the answers are now up. Here’s my favourite one:
Q: Are there any good arguments that support farm subsidies?
A: No.
Actually that’s a bit unfair, there is more to the answer than that. Check it out. And let us know if you want something similar here on agrobiodiversity.
Roman capers
Couldn’t resist this shot the other evening. Those are capers clinging to the remains of the Ponte Rotto in Rome. Wonder if anyone ever collects them. Not so much hidden harvest as hard-to-reach harvest.