- Professor said meat should be properly priced to avoid disaster. Why just meat?
- “The Seed Makers Who Don’t Pray for Rain.” Slick, but do they actually pray for drought?
- Found the above here, but is GMO drought resistance really “very important stuff to making farming sustainable”?
- Kenyan farmers grow mushrooms. Fun, guys.
- Does Africa need better product branding?
- Public Aid, Philanthropy, and the Privatization of African Agricultural Development. I confess, I didn’t understand most of it.
- Rhizowen invents the artichon. Who says there’s no new food to be discovered?
- Kew celebrates International Year of Biodiversity. Pollinators get a look-in.
- Rome celebrates International Year of Biodiversity. Agriculture prominent.
- IUCN celebrates Allium pskemense: edible, medicinal, a crop wild relative, and threatened.
- World record plate of hummus, 10,452 kg of tasty serotonin.
- Local man sends USDA a fig they didn’t have in their genebank.
Nibbles: Allanblackia domestication, Rampion census, Mali reforestation, Indian sacred groves, Oysters, Seaweeds, Breeding organics, EMBRAPA, Fisheries bycatch, Writing NUS proposals, Nutrition mag, Biofortification
- Boffins trying to domesticate Allanblackia for its oil.
- Phyteuma spicatum must be saved, British folklore depends on it. How about domesticating it?
- Farmers replanting forest in inland Niger delta. Sort of domesticating the forest, you mean?
- And here’s another domesticated forest, this time in Kerala.
- Are oysters domesticated? And seaweeds? Lots of uses for seaweeds, after all.
- Why plant breeding is incompatible with organic agriculture. Eh? First of a trilogy.
- Management of plant genetic resources in Brazil deconstructed.
- Oh dear, now boffins say avoiding bycatch may not be good after all.
- CTA calls for research notes in preparation for proposal writing workshop on neglected and underutilized plants.
- New Sight and Life magazine is out, with interesting discussions of Vitamin A supplementation in newborns and HIV patients.
- While at Scidev.net HarvestPlus defends biofortified crops against charge of medicalizing micronutrient deficiency.
Nibbles: Mpingo, Chickpea, Oak, Amaranth
- At last, sustainable clarinets!
- Hummus war gets serious. All that seratonin not helping?
- “Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men.” Simon Schama on Quercus robur. Note to BBC: learn how to write species names.
- Pop quiz: Some 20,000 tons of this seed were delivered by Aztec farmers in annual tribute to their emperor, Montezuma. Now big in the US, according to NYTimes piece. From 1984.
Clean water and indigenous knowledge
SciDev.net reports that prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp) can be used in a simple process to remove 98% of bacteria from dirty water. ((I worry about the other 2%, really I do.)) That would be good news for poor people who may be surrounded by prickly pears, but lack clean water. Alas, (some) poor people don’t want pure water.
“Stomach and intestinal infections are considered a way of cleansing the body, and are not conceived as diseases.”
Oh the dilemma. Preserve their indigenous knowledge, or offer them better health? ((Yeah, yeah, another damned binary choice, I know.))
Strangely, among other communities, on another continent, indigenous knowledge of the water purifying properties of Moringa seeds is just plain confused. Some people know all about it, others believe that more than three Moringa trees are “a source of misfortune that brings poverty and death”. But not from water-borne diseases, perhaps.
Bob is healthy
Via Lois Englberger comes news of Bob Festival Day in the Marshall Islands last Saturday, 24 April. Bob is not some guy, but rather the Pandanus tree. Lois shared Lydia Tibon’s description of the event, which we reproduce below. Pandanus is very important throughout the Pacific, where it has multiple uses. Lois is particularly interested in its beta carotene content. Our thanks to both her and Lydia.
KIJLE (Kora in Jiban Lolorjake Ejmour), meaning “women assisting to promote good health,” participated. We wanted to remind everyone that Bob is better than eating processed foods.
As you can see, the table, chairs, everything hanging and inside our float were pandanus-made. Our kids, grannies were chewing and throwing bobs to everyone. Our billboard message was to promote both education and health.
Our motto is Bob Dikdik Kejadikdrik, the translation is something like “Bob is so fruitful.” It produces so much, it gives us so much knowledge that we use the leaves by weaving the mats, making hats, use to drink medicines, also gives Vitamin A that is very rich to protect our skin, vision, bones and many more….
Our T/shirt that day was “Bob is healthy.”
