Policy

June 19, 2013June 20, 2013

World Food Prize announcement today

Our Laureate Announcement Ceremony is THIS Wednesday, June 19, at 12:30pm EDT! The event will be live via webcast at http://t.co/bhCgXIpB5Q

— World Food Prize Foundation (@WorldFoodPrize) June 17, 2013

Who will it be, who will it be, who will it be, who will it be, who will it be? Find out in one hour!

June 19, 2013June 18, 2013

Nibbles: Fishing, Food systems, Monitoring, Farmers’ rights book, Indian veggies

Fishing in the gene pool, a presentation from that Eucarpia meeting.
The Maine Law Review publishes a whole bunch of papers on food systems in the US and elsewhere.
While Ensia publishes just one: food rethought.
Conservation Magazine points to a nifty idea from Australia: Fluker posts. Citizen science for monitoring landscape change. Can we get some agricultural ones?
Speaking of citizens: new book on farmers’ rights.
Indians told to eat their (native) vegetables.

June 18, 2013June 18, 2013

Nibbles: Indigenous conservation, Rice and conservation, Amazon medicines, Organic products, Sustainable oysters, Cherfas at Seed Savers, Calestous Juma, Cassava website, Israeli agritech, Fragaria breeding, Catacol whitebeam, Weather sensors, FAO Commission & Conference, Amartya Sen

A toolkit to help indigenous communities do conservation. Should they need one.
On the other hand… Half of Japan’s endangered species hotspots are found in satoyama, which are under pressure. Compare and contrast with rice farming in Thailand.
Learn all about some medicinal plants of the Amazon, minus their scientific names. Not including runa tea. Lots of other opportunities out there, though.
Maybe even including oysters.
Jeremy no doubt to feast on the mollusc after spilling the beans on the EU seed regulations at the Seed Savers jamboree.
Wonder what Calestous Juma thinks of those regulations.
But I bet he (and his father, who introduced the crop to his region of Kenya) would like this cassava website to rule them all.
The Volcani Institute‘s gifts to the world…
…probably include new strawberries, but not this one.
Scientists straining, failing to find plant to meaningfully compare to the giant panda.
Bioversity does up its iButtons.
And gets a namecheck in a paean to the FAO Commission on GRFA on its 30th birthday. All this FAO stuff is because its Conference is on this week. I don’t suppose any of it will be more important than Amartya Sen’s speech.

June 14, 2013June 14, 2013

Nibbles: Public goods, Again, Tainted love, Strawberry Fare, Organic money, Organic unbuttered parsnips, Insect resistance, Cassava quakes, Gin and other botanics

A well-briefed Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, reflects on biodiversity for food and agriculture as a public good. Video. Comments closed!
UK genebanks are wonderful, says chair of British Society of Plant Breeders.
Getting ready for a possible ban on pig castration, the Nordic Food Lab tells us how to deal with Boar Taint.
The things you can learn from strawberries (if you can hold off eating them).
More money for research on organic agriculture shock plea.
HRH Prince Charles didn’t use the R-word, but you know he might just possibly agree.
I wonder whether he realises that the evolution of resistance by insect pests is predictable.
If cassava is such a Rambo root, how come it quivers before a fly? Even a super-fly?
And if that isn’t enough to keep you busy over the weekend, how about celebrating World Gin Day tomorrow, with a good book (and a glass) in hand, natch.

June 12, 2013June 12, 2013

Nibbles: Indian farmer, Indian farming landscape, Guatemalan protected areas, Old phones, Geo-data, HarvestPlus funding, Cavia, Agronomy, Bee bank, De-extinction

Bhogpur farmer Subash Chander Misra gets Plant Genome Savior Farmer award 2012 for pear conservation.
While a whole farming system gets protected in Kerala.
Hope it doesn’t go the way of protected areas in Guatemala. Maybe they need old mobile phones. Or a better roads or urban expansion dataset. Or maybe just their own maps.
UK government puts money where mouth is with grant to HarvestPlus. For things like this from ICRISAT. And have you seen the BBC slideshow?
Funnily enough, nobody talking about guinea pigs as a solution for malnutrition.
How Australian agriculture improved its water use efficiency. Clue: it’s not one thing. Good to be reminded, yet again, that’s it’s not necessarily always and only about the diversity. Keeps us centred.
Bees get a bank?
The de-extinction debate rumbles on. Centred, did someone say?