- Jacob alerts me that our “throw duplicates of all accessions from an airplane flying across Africa” Gedanken experiment may be closer to realization than we thought.
- Reindeer in trouble. In other news, there are 7 subspecies of the things.
- Indonesia looks to its threatened livestock wild relatives.
- Agriculture (among other things) in North Korea.
- Buffalo distributed in Myanmar. From where?
- Local vegetables promoted in the Philippines.
- More inspirational stuff on the Millennium Seed Bank from Jonathan Drori.
- Organizations Involved in Organic Plant Breeding Projects and Education. Not as many as you’d think.
- “Learning centres” helping farmers identify challenges, adapt to climate change.
DIVERSEEDS puts out DVD
DIVERSEEDS is a scientific project supported fully by the European Commission´s 6th framework programme. We are “Networking on conservation and use of plant genetic resources in Europe and Asia.”
And I think we may have mentioned them before. Anyway, the latest news from the network is that they have a DVD out:
This documentary shows why biodiversity is important for agriculture and how it is conserved and used in many different locations in Europe and Asia.
The DVD costs about US$40, but you can get a discount if you order five or more. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t tell you much more about it. But the contents seems to consist of a series of fifteen or so short (average 3 minutes) films on a wide variety of agrobiodiversity conservation and use initiatives, ranging from the Austrian NGO Arche Noah, to the Thai genebank, to crop wild relatives in the Fertile Crescent, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. I’ll try to get hold of a copy and report.
Nibble: Coconut, Punjab, Oak barrels, Schools, Podcasts, Origins squared, Apples, Fruit book
- Coconut beetle attack in Cambodia.
- Indian Green Revolutionary goes organic.
- Forests leave fingerprint in wine.
- School gardening in Ghana, farmer field school for women and children in Panama.
- WWF launches podcast series “The Wild Things.” Bioversity to counter with “The Cultivated Things.”
- Oldest pottery found in Chinese cave with oldest rice.
- The transition to agriculture “was entered into slowly and reluctantly.” Evidence from the Netherlands, of all places.
- Got an apple orchard? Wanna be a star?
- Hunting down The Fruit Hunters.
Nibbles: CCD, Organic breeding, Bioprospecting
- “The growing consensus among researchers is that multiple factors such as poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides can interact to weaken colonies and make them susceptible to a virus-mediated collapse.”
- “…breeding spring wheat specific to organic agriculture should be conducted on organically managed land.”
- “A project developing medicinal products from plants found in Kakamega forest, western Kenya, has transformed the livelihoods of nearby communities…”
Nibbles: Asparagus, Eels, ICT, Dingoes, Phoenix dactylifera, Apples, Bear-pit
- Liguria’s asparago violetto gets Slow Food treatment.
- “The bottom line is we just don’t know why they are struggling so badly.”
- Using mobile phones to treat plant pests and diseases in Uganda.
- Dingoes have positive effect on biodiversity.
- Date palm genome mapped.
- Boffins see the light, explain negative effect of fertilizers on biodiversity.
- Brogdale situation “better,” but for how long?
- Wait, Bern has a bear-pit?