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?
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.
Pass the bottle
This was mentioned in a recent comment, but it is worth highlighting more visibly. Andy Waterhouse from the Department of Viticulture and Enology, and Charlie Bamforth, Anheuser-Busch Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences, both at UC Davis, debate wine vs beer. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Malaria pics
I don’t think you need to have had malaria to be profoundly moved by John Stanmeyer’s photographs for National Geographic ((Via BoingBoing)), though no doubt it helps. The New Agriculturist gathered some thoughts on the link between malaria and agriculture some years back. I picked up my dose here:
But I didn’t have to cope with it while also trying to grow enough food for my children. And talking of pictures on watery themes, check out these from the BBC on a Nigerian (cat)fishing festival.
Sorghum to Swaziland; coals to Newcastle?
I’m having a little trouble getting my head round this one. The “Republic of China on Taiwan” funded a successful project to teach Swazi farmers how to grow sorghum in areas with little rainfall. You might have thought that at least a few local farmers would have known how to grow this staple, but apparently all had been forgotten in the rush to cotton and maize. The Swazi Minister of Agriculture also said that education assisted the move away from sorghum:
Sorghum needed someone in the fields to chase away birds and because most children now go to school, maize then became popular.
The farmers who took part in the project were happy enough with the result. I just hope they don’t keep their children away from school to work as scarecrows.