Policy – Page 252 – Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

June 19, 2012June 19, 2012

Nibbles: Nutrition in India, Future food needs, Pollinators, Community gardens, Local inputs

IFPRI tackles the agriculture-nutrition disconnect in India.
Makanaka tackles the fact-assumption disconnect in future food needs.
Jeremy admits to disconnect between his knowledge and World Pollinator Week.
Spain’s economic crisis connects communities to gardens.
Local farmers connect to local inputs; everyone benefits.

June 18, 2012June 18, 2012

Nibbles: CWR video, Super barley, Banana fermentation, Cerrado, Indian genebank sell-off farrago, Pistacia, Potato disease

Al Jazeera discovers wild relatives.
The Scotsman discovers the laws of heredity.
Diana uncovers banana beer.
Rio +20 hacks discover the cerrado.
Indian genebank discovers the market?
JSTOR uncovers the pistachio.
Scottish potato farmers discover new nemesis.

June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

Nibbles: ITPGRFA, Samoan coconuts, Ancient Amazon, Moringa

CGIAR pushes ITPGRFA into Rio +20 limelight. ITPGRFA unavailable for comment.
Recession or no recession, Samoan women’s group in Body Shop coconut oil deal.
Pre-Columbian Amazon not densely inhabited after all. Just wake me up when they sort this out.
Ok, where do I get my hands on some Moringa leaves?

June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

Nibbles: Gathering, Tubers, Quinoa, Africa-American heirlooms, Deforestation

Edible weeds, anyone?
Nope, Slate says the answer is tubers. And they may have a point.
But Evo Morales thinks it’s quinoa.
Meanwhile, Ms. Kimble cultivates her vegetable garden.
And Luigi enticed by new mapping tool to explore deforestation on Sumatra.

June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

Nibble: South Sudan seed fair, Seed cinema, Dandelion diversity, Nature’s value graphic, Cocaine synthesis, Livestock farming, Visualizing conservation trade-offs, Vertical farms, Sequence fungi

A seed fair in South Sudan. Good idea, but why only certified seed?
Maybe they should watch Seeds of Freedom. Well, maybe.
Genetic diversity is important! Settle down, we’re talking dandelions.
Nature’s value includes crops. Phew. Dandelion is a crop, isn’t it?
Talking about value… She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie…
And again. Award-winning research on livestock farming’s value to developing countries. And its dark side.
Both of which could of course be usefully visualized by the people involved.
Vizualise this! Nightmare skyscraping vertical farms, for real.
Today’s jetpack request comes from Sophien Kamoun, stimulated by ravishing fungi.

1. Swapping maize for indigenous crops won’t fix African food systems designed around markets and policies that still favour a narrow range of crops.
2. Cassava is both a food security fallback and a commercial crop in Uganda, but disease, climate change and declining diversity make its conservation an increasingly urgent form of insurance. But what about the markets and policies?
3. When livestock and crops fail, Ugandan pastoralists draw on wild plants for food, underlining how much food-system resilience still sits outside the formal agricultural system, with its markets and policies.
4. The Morton Arboretum is using living collections and genetic research to help the threatened butternut tree cope with changing conditions.
5. Webinar discusses global approaches to seed provenancing and transfer zones, useful for anyone who wants to move native plants without moving the wrong genes. Butternut very interested.
6. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo preserves genetic material of plant and animal species that may disappear, from DNA to cells to organisms. Butternut volunteers.
7. New Indian facility combines ex situ fish conservation with community aquaculture. Good model for much of the above?
Published on October 6, 2026