Policy

November 17, 2012November 17, 2012

Nibbles: AIRCA lives, Graft mangos, Breed forage, Discuss seed laws, Overfish

Apologies for the lack of service; we’re a bit all over the map.

The Association of International Research and Development Centres for Agriculture (AIRCA) comes a step closer. Smallholder farmers rejoice.
Side grafting and informal scion exchange for fun and profit. Smallholder mango farmers rejoice.
Annals of botany highlights strategies for forage and grass improvement. Forage breeders and livestock rejoice.
European NGOs discuss non-paper on revision to seed legislation. Eurocrats see no reason to rejoice.
German development agency goes large on small fish stocks, with added political goodness. Fisherfolk see no reason to rejoice either.

November 13, 2012

Nibbles: SOWF, Pollinators, Bamboo, Policy, Cupuaçu, Salak, Pomegranate

State of the World’s Forests 2012 is out. Save some trees by downloading the PDFs.
More from FAO: Potential Effects of Climate Change on Crop Pollination. Stick that in your crop model.
And then there’s climate change and bamboos — of interest to more than pandas?
Bioversity policy wonks call for New strategies and partnerships for the sustainable use of plant genetic resources. What was wrong with the old ones?
Kew says The taste of the Amazon is Cupuaçu. A name I recognized only because I recently spent half a lifetime on Wikipedia’s entry for Theobroma.
Smithsonian says The taste of Indonesia is salak, a name I didn’t recognise even when told it is snakefruit. Or Salacca zalacca, a name to really conjure with.
Cynthia says, the taste of love is pomegranate. Let us go to the vineyards to see …

November 9, 2012November 20, 2017

UK Chancellor backs plant breeding

#OsborneSci Uses the @royalsociety's 'sustainable intensification' line. Nods to JIC and Rothamsted. I can feel @bbsrc beaming from here.

— Jack Stilgoe (@Jackstilgoe) November 9, 2012

Does that mean the UK’s genebanks are safe? More here. And here.

I wonder if he might be interested in what’s going on in Brussels at the same time. No, probably not.

November 7, 2012November 7, 2012

Nibbles: Biodiversity economics, ICARDA social network, Beyond food miles, Heirlooms on BBC, Cannabis, Research funding, Cacao diversity, Agriculture from the air, Sustainable intensification example, Research whine, Japanese botanic garden visit, European PGR network, Tribal Glycene, Youth in agriculture

Oxford Review of Economic Policy has special volume on biodiversity economics. Not much ag, though, settle down.
ICARDA announces on Twitter the existence of a new Facebook page which looks a bit like the old one.
It’s the fertilizer miles, stupid.
Great British Food Revival does heirloom carrots. Oh and beer.
Good news for a particular agricultural biodiversity subsector from Amsterdam and Colorado. The Dude unavailable for comment. For obvious reasons.
If you’re from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda and are doing research on Neglected and Underutilized Species you’ll be interested in this call or research proposals from ISF.
Bioversity deconstructs that paper on the spatial analysis of Theobroma diversity. I still don’t quite get why they didn’t do the gap analysis.
Farming from the air. And more along the same lines. Or polygons, I suppose I should say. Can you estimate diversity from the air? I bet you can.
Sustainable intensification in (sort of) action.
Damn rice farmers not playing ball.
Oxford botany geeks visit Japan, identify wood of bench in noodle bar.
13th meeting ECPGR Steering Committee. All the documents you’ll need. And then some.
Soybean as a vegetable. Possibly an acquired taste.
How to keep young people on the farm? “Perhaps the first point to recognise is that the evidence base on which to build policy and programmes is frighteningly thin.”

November 6, 2012November 6, 2012

Nibbles: Value chains, CAP, Intercropping, Tree trouble, Phenotyping

Sustainable value chains made easy. Perhaps too easy.
An end to crazy EU agricultural subsidies? Don’t hold your breath. What would it mean for agricultural biodiversity?
Yesterday it was rotation, today it is intercropping, and more. Is there something in the air?
Ten new things we learned about trees this year. The one I would add is that eucalypts are rain forest species.
Way more about high-throughput phenotyping than I need to know. But somehow still less than I’d like to know. Thanks, Tom.