- Gates just gave AGRA $56 million to make new seed varieties available. PASS still not collecting the diversity it hopes to displace.
- Hang on though. Africa needs a “Green renaissance, not revolution”.
- Saving seeds the ancient Egyptian way.
- Eating sweets the ancient Papuan (and others) way.
- Odd to hear an agrobiodiversity dude talking about silver bullets – even with a question mark.
- SeedZoo site offers a space to give and to receive “traditional and indigenous food plants from around the world”.
- Today’s forthcoming genome of agricultural interest: water buffalo.
- Farmer to farmer films – gender sensitive, natch – “fight against striga”.
- Assessing the Potential of Insects as Food and Feed in assuring Food Security, from the FAO document repository.
- Much sound, less light, on black Sigatoka disease, from the BBC (natch).
- Vaviblog rounds up the latest skinny on Pavlovsk.
- And speaking of Vavilov, the latest genome to be sequenced has a VIR connection.
Brainfood: Water, Policy, Geneflow
- The water footprint of humanity. Someday you’ll need this. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
- Evolution in biodiversity policy – current gaps and future needs. EU policies are all but useless; but you knew that.
- Genomic regions in crop–wild hybrids of lettuce are affected differently in different environments: implications for crop breeding. To prevent the spread of GMO genes to wild relatives, it matters where you make the insertion.
Nibbles: Commons, Tom Wagner, CGIAR, Domestication presentation, Sophisticated urbanites, Vavilov’s potatoes in the news, Perennial crops, African drought, Aegean lathyrism, Heirlooms
- The vocabulary of the commons.
- An interview with Tom Wagner, a great tomato and potato breeder.
- The CGIAR Consortium has a newsletter, with bits in it about what they’re doing on agrobiodiversity, genebanks (such as this one), all that stuff. But I guess news of this big Africa-wide food security project came in too late. Oh, here’s another one, on ICRISAT’s new chickpea.
- Pat Heslop-Harrison on domestication. I am reliably informed he once extracted DNA from a fruit smoothie using nothing but household utensils and cleaning chemicals. Pat, is there a video?
- Urban ag in the Philippines. For some reason, there’s been a ton of this sort of urban food stuff on the tubes lately. Like this for instance. And this (compare current orchards in London with historical ones). I may just have to blog about it. Oh dear, I just have.
- The Glasgow Herald heralds the importance of Vavilov’s potatoes.
- Long post with lots of different bits of info on lots of perennial crops.
- Monitoring drought in Africa via pretty maps. And more pretty maps in search of a use.
- Ancient Aegean lathyrism? Dirk alerted.
- A keeper of seeds does his stuff near Pittsburgh.
Nibbles: Erna Bennett film, Phytophilosophy, Agroecology, Lawsuit, Sesame, Prize, Svalbard
- GRAIN found and shared a 1986 Canadian documentary that includes interviews with Erna Bennett.
- “Critical minds and ‘vegetal life’.” Plants and philosophy. Wacky, yes. But perhaps of interest.
- Are you near Port Townsend, WA? Go hear a lecture on “Farming with Nature: Agroecology for the Olympic Peninsula” on Monday at 7.30.
- While the EU potentially gives diversity a break, the US judge rejects organic suit against Monsanto.
- Open sesame (yeah, I know). Oxfam documents how best to use sesame to lift Ethiopians out of poverty.
- Nominate someone who has “made outstanding contributions for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels” for the Midori Prize. We’re available.
- The Atlantic and NPR do the Svalbard thing. Gotta hand it to the Trust.
EU seed law may be declared illegal some time soon
Thanks to Patrick for alerting us to the English translation of the Opinion of Advocate General Kott in the matter of Case C-59/11 Association Kokopelli v Graines Baumaux SAS. It would repay unpacking by a legal expert, but in the meantime the conclusion looks pretty much cut and dried. At least for now.
125. In the light of the foregoing, I propose that the Court should rule as follows:
1. The prohibition on the sale of seed of varieties that are not demonstrably distinct, stable and sufficiently uniform and, where appropriate, of satisfactory value for cultivation and use, established in Article 3(1) of the Vegetable Seed Directive, is invalid as it infringes the principle of proportionality, the freedom to conduct a business within the meaning of Article 16 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the free movement of goods established in Article 34 TFEU and the principle of equal treatment within the meaning of Article 20 of the Charter.
To summarise: “The prohibition … is invalid.” Although there’s probably more to it than that …