Mainstream

March 27, 2008March 27, 2008

More spud news than anyone needs

Today’s crop of heartwarming potato stories come to you from Peru, the Philippines and India. First, Living in Peru has a fluff piece about how Peruvians are not eating enough potatoes, and that something must be done about it. It also says that “Peru has 2,800 of the 3,900 varieties of potatoes that exist in the world today.” I have no idea where they got those figures, whether they are close to the truth, or whether we even know the truth. But I’ll try to dig a little deeper and report back.

Then comes the Philippines Information Authority with news that a new potato variety is to be released in that country, bearing the name of the president. How sweet. The article says that the “original planting material was sourced” from the International Potato Centre (CIP), and previously had the codename “13.1.1”. The variety is blight-resistant and high in solids, and is supposed to be good for organic conditions. Now, it would have been interesting to know a little more about 13.1.1, but some rapid checking revealed nothing. Again, I will dig further.

And finally, news from India that a local farmer’s son, who went to the US for training in plant physiology and pathology, has now come back and set up a tissue culture lab on the family farm. Now that’s what I call technology transfer. But you wonder what kind of a farmer the father is. Not your typical Indian farmer, I’ll wager.

March 26, 2008April 9, 2008

Research on crofting reveals oppression, not much else

A few days ago a short article in the Farmers Guardian, a British rural newspaper, mentioned what sounds like an interesting research project: “Crofters: Indigenous People of the Highlands and Islands.” Unfortunately, a look at the Scottish Crofting Foundation website doesn’t reveal much more information. It would have been nice to know, for example, whether the project looked at the contribution crofters make to on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity. Surely there was more to the project than a glossy brochure moaning about the oppression of indigenous crofters. Maybe Maria Scholten will be able to tell us.

Meanwhile, in another part of darkest Britain, another traditional lifestyle based on the management and use of agricultural biodiversity — thatching — is having to go through bureaucratic hoops. I’ll let Danny over at Rurality tell you all about it. Would be funny if it wasn’t sad. Traditional doesn’t mean unchanging, guys.

March 25, 2008October 26, 2021

Nibbles: Aromatics, local food, rice, trade, cetriolo mate, maize, sweet potato, media

The International Symposium on Aromatic and Medicinal Plants, 3-6 November 2008 in Noumea, New Caledonia. Anyone interested in live blogging it for us? He asked, to thunderous silence.
Modern Forager on the traditional diets of some funky places.
IRRI flickrs rice photos. Another day, another neologism. Via.
The lengths people will go to exchange agrobiodiversity. Sorry, I have a thing about maps of trade routes. Via.
Australian woman adopts Italian cucumber.
Corn domesticated even earlier in Ecuador.
Sweet potato may have got to the Pacific islands by chance.
The truth about those hipster farmers; “it must be true, I read it in the paper”.

March 22, 2008March 22, 2008

Follow your tree in Google Earth

I agree with Frank Taylor at Google Earth Blog: it is a really good idea. You go to mybabytree.org, pay $5.50, and WWF plants a tree (you have a choice of 3 species) for you in Sebangau National Forest in Kalimantan, Indonesia, and sends you a KML file of its location. How about doing the same for heirloom varieties of fruit trees or something?

March 21, 2008March 21, 2008

Potato museums

So there’s an Idaho Potato Museum. I found out because four local worthies have just been nominated to its Hall of Fame. It seems a fun enough place, but definitely somewhat more parochial than the Potato Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. NPR did a piece on this latter outfit earlier this year, what with it being the International Year etc etc.