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April 27, 2014April 27, 2014

Quinoa backlash backlash recap recap

Let’s recap. First, the Quinoa Boom on the Bolivian Altiplano was A Good Thing. A backlash was, in retrospect, inevitable. Soon enough, it was A Bad Thing. Then, slowly, sense prevailed, and we were all, like, We Need More Data. Most recently, we’ve had It’s Complicated.

So it’s interesting, don’t you think, that Alternet, which sort of started the backlash in the first place, has just published a piece which includes this summary:

…American accounts of the story “either fall on the side of ‘the quinoa boom is amazing and it’s lifting people out of poverty’ or ‘the quinoa boom is terrible and is destroying people’s lives,’ and in both of those narratives the indigenous people are given no agency…”

And is it just a coincidence that FAO has also just published online an infographic on The impact of the Quinoa boom on Bolivian family farmers? It not only identifies the challenges, but suggests some solutions as well. But you’ll have to click on it here on the left to see all that.

Meanwhile, though…

The most recent Farm Bill was an excellent opportunity for quinoa to gain both broader recognition and government payments. After all, temperate japonica rice, used in sushi, made the list of government supported commodities. Perhaps quinoa is next.

That would be in the US. Agency indeed.

April 23, 2014April 23, 2014

Nibbles: Rural income sources, Medicinal trees, Saffron, Biofuel trees, Trout genome, Maize & drugs in Mexico, Bee-keeping, Urban ag, Food security, Jackfruit, SDG2015

Natural areas just as important for rural incomes as crops.
Because of things like medicinal plants, among others.
Not if the crop was saffron, though. Or multi-purpose biofuels?
Trout gets the genome treatment. I prefer it grilled with a little butter and parsley.
High maize prices good for one thing. Wanna guess?
Guerrilla bee-keepers in the Rust Belt.
Maybe they’ll be discussed in tomorrow’s tweetathon: Urban Food Security +SocialGood.
Brussels sprouts too, maybe: it’s urban agriculture, Jim, but not as we know it.
Another view on NatGeo’s five steps to food security. (Here’s Luigi’s.)
The key thing NatGeo left out: jackfruit.
Well, that, and multi-stakeholder partnerships. Of course.

April 20, 2014April 20, 2014

Special Brainfood Extra: Economic Botany, Volume 68, Number 1

A whole issue of a journal given the Brainfood treatment. Because I’ve got allergies and can’t go out and it’s a holiday and I’m bored. Think of it as an Easter egg. Unnecessary, but tasty.

Are Ecologically Important Tree Species the Most Useful? A Case Study from Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon. Among medicinal and edible species, the most used are not the ones that most strike you as you walk around. Unlike the case for species used in construction and crafts.
The Electronic Trade in Greek Endemic Plants: Biodiversity, Commercial and Legal Aspects. Seemingly profitable, but possibly largely illegal. And I’m willing to bet that the ones that are most traded are the ones that are most difficult to find.
Medicinal Plant Trade in Sierra Leone: Threats and Opportunities for Conservation. No internet involved, but still profitable. For how long? I guess that depends on how easy they are to find, and harvest sustainably.
Structure and Floristic Composition of Forest Management Systems Associated with the Edible Fruit Tree Oecopetalum mexicanum in the Sierra de Misantla, Veracruz, Mexico. You can manage a landscape to favour a particular, strikingly important species, and also promote diversity.
Contemporary Gathering Practice and Antioxidant Benefit of Wild Seaweeds in Hawai’i. No word on whether the most obvious ones are are the ones that are most used, but I gotta believe that they are.
The Food System during the Formative Period in West Mesoamerica. Advent of ceramics may have had an important effect on crops and food.
Fuelling the Ancient Maya Salt Industry. Not to mention on their seasoning.
Identification of Cannabis Fiber from the Astana Cemeteries, Xinjiang, China, with Reference to Its Unique Decorative Utilization. Used to make the tails on horse figurines. No word on further, ahem, ritual uses.
Big Messages in Small Details: Nature in Roman Archaeology. Even the small details of the natural world on the Ara Pacis have meaning. Like the horses’ tails?

April 19, 2014April 18, 2014

Nibbles: Mainstream MAS, ICRISAT breeding, History of hunger, Specialty crops, Biofortification, Collectivizing smallholders, Fake seeds, Good seeds, Maize diversity, Making palm oil, Space ag, Cacao and CC, Cassava and CC, Cherry phenology, CC adaptation, Flavour gene, Indian apples, GBIF data, EU force feeding petition, BRITE, Sir Hans Sloane, Silk Road, Banana realism

Round-up of stuff that’s been accumulating over past few days because we were busy putting food on the table.
Marker assisted selection of tomatoes makes it to Washington Post. When will African crops do the same?
“The history of humanity is a history of hunger.” Maybe MAS of African crops will help.
USDA money for minor crops. Including African crops?
Nigerian minister of agriculture on biofortification. Of African crops.
African smallholders need to get together. They have nothing to lose but their chains. And their fake seeds. Which is not a problem for their Central American brethren.
Someone mention Central America? Listen to a talk on maize diversity therein. And at the other end of the region’s diversity spectrum: oil palm.
NASA wants to grown stuff in space. Organically, of course. African smallholders nonplussed.
In space, nobody can hear you riot over food prices.
Saving cacao from climate change: The colloquium. We’ve had cassava. Cherries next?
Hold everything: there’s a framework for this business of crop diversity and climate change.
Deconstructing strawberry flavour. Apples next? Not sure Indian farmers will care much.
GBIF wants you to tell them how your data should be licensed. And some background.
You can lobby the EU on fois gras. If that’s your thing.
If you’re in Vancouver on May 6, you can celebrate five years of the Biodiversity Research: Integrative Training and Education (BRITE) Internship Program.
You can also intern at Globefish, which links global fish-trade information networks comprising 85 countries.
Great Great Lives podcast on Sir Hans Sloane, whose connections with agricultural biodiversity are multiple.
Something else whose connections with agrobiodiversity are many, though this could have been highlighted more in the article in question: the Silk Road.
What’s the late Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s connection to crop diversity?

April 9, 2014

Nibbles: Borlaug, Wheat history, Plant breeding, Nepali tomato

The Borlaug 100 conference programme now has links to many of the presentations.
Including a link to Rachel Laudan’s history of Wheat: the grain at the center of civilization.
Oh boy. A new edition of FAO’s Plant Breeding & Genetics Newdsletter.
Video on “Reviving Nepal with hybrid tomatoes“. So many questions, so few answers.