- Banana boffins at each others’ throats over alleged new species. Great spectator sport.
- What does a Musa voucher specimen look like, I wonder.
- Fancy shmanzy Bangkok restaurant links up with heirloom seedbank.
- Aroid network working really hard.
- Marker-assisted selection: a biotechnology we can all get behind. Can’t we?
- Conservation in Sierra Leone. No agrobiodiversity, natch.
A Green Revolution for trees
Prof Roger Leakey, sometime of ICRAF (among other places), where he pioneered tree domestication in support of rural livelihoods, and now Vice Chairman of the International Tree Foundation, has a fascinating new book in the offing.
In contrast to the doom and gloom often emanating from the tropics, ‘Living with the Trees of Life’ illustrates how many different aspects of agricultural science can be combined into a more robust approach to farming, which will be productive, as well as more environmentally and socially sustainable. This approach uses agroforestry as a delivery mechanism for multifunctional agriculture aimed at addressing the cycle of land degradation and social deprivation in the tropics. A key role in this is played by the ‘Trees of Life’, the large number of indigenous trees that produce marketable fruits, nuts, medicines and other products of day-to-day importance in the lives of local people throughout the tropics.
The book promises to be very practical.
A 3-step approach is described which can be used to close the Yield Gap (the difference between the yield potential of food crops and the yields actually achieved by farmers). This pays special attention to land husbandry and to the wise use of the natural resources which support agriculture and the livelihoods of poor farmers. By closing the Yield Gap agroforestry builds on the advances of the Green Revolution.
Builds on those advances while avoiding its pitfalls, and indeed rectifying its more regrettable consequences, one assumes.
Finally, all this comes together in a set of five ‘Convenient Truths’ which highlight that we have most of the knowledge and skills we need. This is illustrated by the Equator Prize winning project ‘Food for Progress’, in Cameroon, a project which has also been recognized by UK Government’s Office for Science as an African Success Story.
I had a little trouble identifying this project, but I believe I finally found it, and very interesting it sounds too.
Look out for the book in July, from CABI.
Nibbles: Beetle diets, Seed hunters, NUS, Food security, Indian malnutrition, Craft Irish beer, Nordic livestock, Prosecco DOC, Artemisia, CGIAR
- Predators hunt for a balanced diet. So it’s not just people?
- Seeds of High Asia. Saudi Aramco World gives respect to the seed hunters.
- Obscure crops and an obscure book. Dorian Fuller gives respect to the neglected.
- “For the time being, I genuinely believe we must maintain yield growth, but we need to ensure that we preserve the natural capital for the future.” UK Food Security Czar speaks.
- Indian PM mea culpa on malnutrition. Will he listen to the above? Would it help?
- Beer in Ireland. Not Guinness. I may be gone some time.
- Nordics discuss AnGR and climate change. Successfully, natch.
- Prosecco runs to the IPR ramparts.
- Video on growing Artemisia to fight poverty.
- Help the CGIAR with its tagline. Beyond irony.
Brainfood: Climate change in Europe, Slow cheese in Portugal, Grapevine diversity in Spain, Noni in India, Farmers and pastoralists in Jordan, Stevia everywhere, Almond genes flow, Peanuts, Disease control
- Representing two centuries of past and future climate for assessing risks to biodiversity in Europe. Temperature up 3-6°C throughout Europe by end of century, rainfall down in south, up in north. Sounds lovely.
- Gourmandizing Poverty Food: The Serpa Cheese Slow Food Presidium. Trying to bring back a lost Portuguese cheese is romantic and elitist. Wish they’d just say what they really mean.
- Genetic diversity of wild grapevine populations in Spain and their genetic relationships with cultivated grapevines. If there’s a genetic contribution of wild grapevines to cultivated in Spain, it’s not great.
- Revisiting the origin of the domestication of noni (Morinda citrifolia L.). Let’s just say Pacific islanders won’t be pleased.
- The desert and the sown: Nomad–farmer interactions in the Wadi Faynan, southern Jordan. Changes from sedentarism to pastoralism are mainly due to chance.
- Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni, source of a high-potency natural sweetener: A comprehensive review on the biochemical, nutritional and functional aspects. Not just sweetness, folic acid, vitamin C and all of the indispensable amino acids except tryptophan too.
- Gene flow among wild and domesticated almond species: insights from chloroplast and nuclear markers. The main insight being that it happens a lot, in both directions.
- Agricultural Technology, Crop Income, and Poverty Alleviation in Uganda. New peanut varieties increase incomes and reduce poverty, but aren’t enough on their own.
- Plant diversity improves protection against soil-borne pathogens by fostering antagonistic bacterial communities. It sure does, at least in a long-term grassland.
Leftovers: Coconuts, Genebank, Vegetables, Famine, Danish, Bissap, Brazil nuts, Dates, Papas y mas, Fruit, Rice, Everything
We found these nibbles at the back of the fridge, and they’re not too mouldy, so lets fry them up before we get anything fresh.
- Boss of India’s agricultural research exhorts international coconut genebank to do more and be heard.
- And, first out of the gate for 2012, Nepal says it will create a new genebank for plants “on the verge of extinction”.
- Immigrant urban agriculture — in Cleveland, Ohio.
- Aid man Edward Carr interviewed: “drought does not equal famine”
- Meetings on “biodiversity” in Europe, under the Danish presidency. Indigestible?
- Hibiscus tea, what a tonic.
- Resources Research goes crazed for book about brazil nuts, and other Amazonian agrobiodiversity.
- A cure for Bayoud disease of dates? And it’s based on medicinal plants!
- Pueblos andinos reciben ejemplares de tubérculos nativos. Otra vez?
- Guerilla grafting? Now there’s an idea for “covert agriculture”. Wonder what the graftees think.
- “The giant panda of the botanical world”? Blimey. A new reserve for real wild rice.
- Huge Satoyama-style paper from Bioversity on THE USE OF AGROBIODIVERSITY BY INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL COMMUNITIES IN: ADAPTING TO CLIMATE CHANGE And they’re the ones doing the shouting.