- Neleshi Grasscutter and Farmers Association (NAGRAFA). Grasscutters are not members.
- The value of geographical indicators. So, where is that grasscutter from?
- Capsicum genes engineered into banana might protect against Xanthomonas wilt in the future, if safe. No need for management then, which works now.
- Interesting arguments for keeping Britain GM-free: profits and aesthetics of biodiverse agriculture.
Nibbles: Allium, Desertification and livestock, Striga, Emmer, Hawaii, Almond, Seeds at FAO, Cassava in central Africa, Seed sculpture, Biofortification, Millets, Lunatrick pea
- Botany Photo of the Day is an onion wild relative! Pretty.
- More on that livestock-can-help-reduce-desertification thing, this time from Scientific American.
- Breeding Striga-resistant sorghum. Whatever it takes to protect local beer, boffin-dudes!
- Emmer wheat reviewed to bits.
- No passport data for your barley? Fear not.
- Rachel Laudan ably defends Hawaiian food.
- Origins of almond traced to Iran. Not for the first time.
- Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture: A Commons Perspective. Presentation from our friends at FAO.
- Presentation on the untapped potential of cassava in the Great Lakes region of Africa. One of many from CIAT lately. Check out their stuff on beans too.
- The Seed Cathedral of Shanghai. Thanks to those public awareness wizards at Kew.
- Big shindig on biofortification. Be there, or be malnourished.
- Times of India bangs the drum for nutritious millets.
- Yet more loveliness from serious amateur pea breeder Rebsie Fairholm.
Nibbles: Sunberry, CGIAR, Climate change, Ecosystem services, Sorghum beer, Turkeys, Ireland
- Sunberry. Taste-free! Toxin-loaded?
- CGIAR needs to do more “crop genetic improvement” for greater impact. Yeah, right.
- Heavy hitters to brief US Congress on Climate Change and Agriculture, June 16.
- Management more important than agricultural biodiversity in delivering ecosystem services? Say it isn’t so!
- Sorghum beer a big hit with England soccer fans.
- Turkeys domesticated for their feathers? This I gotta see.
- (Irish) public understanding of biodiversity.
Nibbles: Hemp, Wheat, Wheat, Conservation, Liberia, Carnival, Climate change, Satoyama, Leafy greens
- The National Cannabis Collection in Hungary. Undated. Popped up. What can I tell you?
- CIMMYT’s wheat atlas. Still in beta. What can I tell you?
- And here’s a primer on spring vs winter wheat.
- Director of European Crop Protection Association equates biodiversity with wildlife. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?
- Liberian President Sirleaf: “Agricultural growth is more effective in reducing poverty than any effort in any other sector.” h/t NtP.
- New edition of Scientia pro Publica blog carnival.
- Our friend Ehsan’s Seeds for Needs project launches in Papua New Guinea, beating climate change to the punch.
- The Satoyama Initiative has a website. And RSS feed.
- “…traditional food crops … are an important source of community resilience in Zimbabwe—including resilience to climate change and economic turbulence.”
Watching TV in the Kolli Hills
More from India’s Kolli Hills and the efforts to reinvigorate millet cultivation there. A recent paper by anthropologist Elizabeth Finnis of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada is described in PLEC Digest. The paper is intriguingly titled “Now it is an easy life” ((E. Finnis 2009. “Now it is an easy life”: women’s accounts of cassava, millet and labor in South India. Culture and Agriculture 31(2): 88-94.)) and the editors at PLEC take this one step further by calling their post “So I can watch TV.”
The point is that there is a very good reason why millets are much less grown than formerly, despite cultural attachment, better nutritional composition and a much-preferred taste. They are a bother to prepare.
Rice has replaced millet as the main staple, freeing the women of a major and onerous morning job. Other income from cassava, and from work outside the local community, is used to vary the diet, pay for children’s education, and buy other commodities. These include bicycles and, for a minority as yet, prestigious goods such as TV sets and motor cycles. There is more time for social activity, and, as one young woman put it, there are more “times when we are free. So I can watch TV” (p.91).
So what to do? Apart from collecting the millets and storing them away in a genebank, that is. The author of the PLEC piece — though not Finnis — does refer to the well-known work of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation:
The project has given considerable attention to marketing issues, and began to provide involved communities with mechanical mills suitable for the dehusking of millet (which has thicker husks than rice) (Gruere et al 2009). However, up to the time of Finnis’ report, these had not reached the part of the Kolli hills in which she worked. In her paper, Finnis does not specifically discuss the Swaminathan project, but suggests that any project involving millet cultivation revival, especially for household use, needs to consider demands on women’s labour, and women’s labour preferences.
Here’s the bottom line:
While irrigation and market improvements could help, it would be reduction of processing time from hours to minutes made possible by mechanical hullers that might achieve most, “allowing women to take advantage of both their preferences for reduced labour loads and for the taste of millets in their everyday diets” (p. 92).
Well that doesn’t sound too difficult to me.