- A way out of hell: workshop on Database Challenges in Biodiversity Informatics
- Potato man honoured.
- Farm diversity reduces nitrogen runoff.
- Darwin on the Farm, from our friends at the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
- Yeast and wheat genome sequencing going gangbusters.
- Coffee!
- Fermented tigernuts more nutritious? No, they’re not from an endangered species. Via.
- Cow water!
- Lots of medicinal plants conservation projects going on in India.
Nibbles: Bananas, Sorghum, Agave, Big vs small, Cauliflower, Wine, Chestnut, Farmers’ rights, India, Aquaculture, Medicinals, Tarpan
- How they grow bananas in Fadan Karshi, Nigeria.
- How they grow sorghum in Karamoja, Uganda.
- How tequila is ruining small farms in Mexico. Or is it?
- How small farms cannot feed Africa. Or can they? Join the debate! Via.
- How the Brits plan to rebrand cauliflower. This I gotta see.
- How the ancient Chinese made wine out of rice, honey, and fruit. Pass the bottle.
- How Georgia is mapping where its chestnuts used to be.
- How farmers’ rights are being implemented.
- How Indian agriculture should move beyond wheat and rice. Ok, but what would everybody eat?
- How microsatellites can be used to help catfish breeding.
- How Ni Wayan Lilir is helping people learn about the traditional healing herbs of Bali.
- How the Brits brought back the Konik.
Agrobiodiversity everywhere, if you look
My weekend reading included two pieces that I felt sure would prove well written and engaging, but which I frankly did not think would yield much in the way of agrobiodiversity fodder. Turns out I was wrong, at least on the latter point.
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto’s review of the Encyclopedia of Exploration 1850 to 1940 by Raymond John Howgego is indeed a model of its type: informative, stimulating and charming. It also includes a reference to the late nineteenth-century Swiss ethnobotanist of Paraguay Moisés Bertoni, who described Stevia rebaudiana, a controversial sugar substitute. And another to the Société Impériale Zoologique d’Acclimatation, which had a famous birthday boy as a loyal member in its early days. 1 A Colonel Henry Wayne apparently won the society’s gold medal for his efforts to introduce camels to the US.
The second piece that intrigued me over the weekend was an article by Matt Jenkins in the Smithsonian Magazine about the elite pilots who guide ships through the treacherous, sand-barred mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. What’s the agrobiodiversity angle? Well, Portland and other upriver ports are the the main gateway in the US for its wheat and barley exports. The river pilots can shut down the entrance to the river if conditions are too bad, but, to quote one of them:
“When we shut down the bar for two days, trains are backed up all the way into the Midwest. And just like a traffic jam on the freeway, once you clear the wreck, it takes a long time for it to smooth out again.”
It’s a great image. The world’s interdependence for agricultural products 2 resting on the judgement of a dozen or so salty sea dogs in the Pacific Northwest.
Recreational farming
An interesting triptych today on farming as recreation. Kind of, anyway. From Vietnam, an unfortunately rather brief article on how foreign tourists can become farmers for a day at Tra Que village. The piece doesn’t say whether that’s the same Tra Que which is being protected by trademark, but I would guess so. 3
There was also today an article about the Konso of Ethiopia, who are apparently sometimes referred to as “the toughest farmers in Africa.” A so-called eco-lodge has been set up, “whose mission is to tie tourism and community development activism through permaculture together, delivering tangible community benefits.” Again, as in Vietnam, the idea is community immersion, though for longer than just a day, and in rather more difficult circumstance, I expect.
And finally, to the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut. Actually it’s a bit of a cheek including this with the previous two stories. The people attending the Centre, and others like it, are in earnest about learning to farm in a way that follows the Law: “One-sixth of the Talmud deals with agriculture.†Some, indeed, will take farming up as a profession. But not all: “We don’t all need to be farmers. To have farming be a little part of every Jewish person’s life, that’s our goal.â€
Nibbles: Aquaculture, Geographical indications, Arable, Beetlejuice
- First Nation takes Canada to court over its salmon stocks. Lawyers exult.
- “Radicchio di Verona”, “Zafferano di Sardegna,” “Aceite de La Alcarria” and “Huîtres Marennes Oléron” protected. Lawyers exult.
- Germans to set aside 100 fields to conserve Caucalido-Adonidetum flammeae and the like. That’s arable weeds to me and you. Nobody exults. Oh come on, some of them might be crop wild relatives!
- Beetle threatens Florida avocado orchards with deadly fungus. Mexico exults?