- Why one Nigerian agriculture student will not become a farmer.
- Meeting in Kenya on agricultural biodiversity, and other stuff, in October.
- Ecuador and access to genetic resources (in Spanish).
- “Scientists on the verge of releasing new striga-resistant sorghum.” Drought-resistant too! No need for push-pull then?
- One wacky plant breeder’s story.
- Attractive local bunny in trouble. Not what you’re thinking, get your mind out of the gutter.
- Forest bonds in the offing. Genebank bonds, anyone?
- Climate change adaptation in Africa: examples of genetic and agronomic fixes. Need both, I guess.
Nibbles: G20, Organics, Oca, Cassava, Molecular phylogenetics, Human diversity, OFSP
- G20 nations turn to agricultural research for food security. All you need to know.
- Would it be worth updating Borlaug on organics? A Prinz says “Yes!”
- Rhizowen gets oca to grow seed to seed. Can Cornish “potatoes” be far behind?
- Is it cassava‘s time?
- Molecular taxonomy helps an allergy sufferer.
- Lagging behind in development? Maybe you’re too diverse. Or not diverse enough. Difficult, in either case, to envisage the solutions.
- Agfax podcast on orange sweet potato in Uganda. Comment on the kuroiler goes for this too.
So what about sericulture in Kenya anyway?
A short piece on Kenyan sericulture from 2007 is one of our most popular posts, ((Which probably means something or other.)) with some 20 comments, the most recent one today, most of them asking for information on how to set up in the business. We have not been very good at replying to these queries as they have came up, and on the one occasion when we did we linked to pages at UNDP-Kenya, ICIPE and Biovision which are all now stone dead. So I thought I’d better clean things up a bit.
Rosemary Mwololo Nyamu pointed us to KARI’s National Sericulture Station-Thika in a comment, but unfortunately this very interesting-sounding place is nowhere to be found on KARI’s website. Not to worry, though. Rosemary has also provided a nice write-up on sericulture, and useful contacts, including her own, at Infonet-Biovision. I just hope this link lasts a bit longet than the others…
More bhang for your buck
Yesterday’s Nibble about the way a high value-added agrobiodiversity product is produced in the Chu Valley of Kazakhstan…
It begins with a freshly showered person riding naked for hours on a clean, washed horse inside a two-meter-high “forest” … Afterwards, the human body and that of the horse are covered with a thick layer of resin mixed with sweat. This produces a substance that is usually dark brown in color, which is then thoroughly scraped off the human and horse’s bodies. The mixture is subsequently pressed, molded into bars, and dried.
…elicited from Dirk (on Facebook, via) the observation that in India “they must have a better method to collect concentrate…” The resulting product is shown above, thanks to ezola’s Flickr stream and a Creative Commons license. And thanks to Tom Maisey, and the same source, we can also see how the stuff is marketed in (some parts of) India.
Alas, I could find no conclusive photographic documentation of how they do things in the Chu Valley, although a music video and a movie trailer give some tantalizing hints.
Nibbles: Gardens, Food/nutrition jargon, Photos, Pacific livestock, Durian descriptors, Oysters, Thai breeders, Meat-reducing, Gender, Chinese fortification, G20
- Community veggie gardens in Cape Town.
- BNSP? WTF?
- AoB adds botanical picture search. Will nothing stop these guys? And meanwhile… Sheesh, is there something in the air today?
- How can Pacific livestock adapt to climate change? And don’t say they should learn to swim.
- How NOT to describe a durian.
- The continuously imminent demise of the Chesapeake Bay oyster.
- Plant breeders go on the rampage in Thailand.
- Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall turns out not to be a made-up name. Pity.
- Kenya’s agriculture increasingly depends on women. MIL unavailable for comment.
- “…because our idea of “adding more” has shaped the way we treat micronutrient deficiencies through food fortification globally, trying to integrate this in China is turning out to be problematic.” I bet it is.
- Montpellier G20 meeting looking for “effective and innovative research partnerships for development and better impact of research from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.” I hope they brought their pyjamas.