- The Eden Project in Cornwall to host harvest festival in October, featuring BBC TV presenter of Grow Your Own Drugs.
- “Super spuds help beat hidden hunger in Uganda.” Where NatGeo leads, DFID follows.
- A land grab story with a difference! Russia to lease land to North Korea.
- UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food offers G20 (more) advice: act on 8 priorities.
- The Scientist Gardener tackles the evolution of tomato fruit shape.
- Al Jazeera gives The Land Institute a soapbox for perennial grains.
Nibbles: IRRI, Palestinian genebanks, Non-dairy ice-cream, Community genebanks, Goat racing, Millions Fed, Seed relief, Gametophytic incompatibilityd, Seed relief, Beer
- IRRI working to adapt rice to climate change, thanks to genebank.
- Palestine gets a genebank. And genebankers, thanks to ICARDA.
- Lupin ice-cream. Sounds yummie.
- Ethio Organic Seed Action “trains farmers in the use of traditional seeds.” I doubt it, but the stuff on community genebanks is nice.
- Goat racing in Uganda. Where are the photos?
- IFPRI publishes companion volume to Millions Fed.
- Vouching for seed vouchers.
- Breeding anti-GMO maize. Well, kinda.
- “Beer could provide lifeline for South Sudan’s small farmers.” I know how they feel.
Nibbles: Refugia, Mann, Tree pix, Sparing v sharing, Lethal yellowing, Value chains, Coral sun-blocking, GlobalHort, Gravenstein, Pirate agrobiodiversity
- How species survive climate change.
- Charles C. Mann, author of great books on pre-Columbian America and the consequences of the Columbian Exchange, interviewed.
- Dreamy pictures of old British trees.
- “Protecting wild species may require growing more food on less land.” Great press release headlines of our times. Fortunately Mongabay has a discussion.
- Coconut lethal yellowing wreaking havoc in Mozambique.
- What makes a good food value chain?
- Boffins want to re-activate coral genes in temperate plants to stop them getting sunstroke. Or something.
- Old friend engaged by GlobalHort to work on position paper on “Promoting Agrobiodiversity for International Development: A Rationale and Roadmap for Collective Action”. Go, Hannah.
- Grapes vs apples in Sonoma County.
- Aaargh, pirates smoked like chimneys and drank like fish. Well I never. Anyway, nice to see them making full use of the local agrobiodiversity products.
Nibbles: Gardens, Heirloom tomatoes, Maple beetles, Nepali citrus, Guyana adaptation, Indian policy, GMOS, Apple festivals
- Nourishing the Planet featured in Madison paper. Fame at last.
- Tomato Party!
- What, no more maple syrup? Something Must Be Done!
- Nepal gets a citrus genebank.
- Guyanese women farmers switch to coconuts (and other things) to cope with flooding.
- Indian farmers demand another Green Revolution.
- Uh-oh. “GMO corn falls prey to bugs it was supposed to thwart“.
- First news of apple festivals, in Vancouver, CA.
Lots of questions about agrobiodiversity
After years of web-based consultation and diligent sifting through the numerous submissions, we now have the final list of “One hundred important questions facing plant science research” in the form of a paper in New Phytologist. The 100-questions thing may be approaching self-parody, but I will resist the temptation to mock the whole enterprise and simply point out here that there are several questions in the list which involve agricultural biodiversity, its conservation and effective use. I’ll leave you with the most obvious example, question E6:
How can we ensure the long-term availability of genetic diversity within socio-economically valuable gene pools?
Leave your answer in the comments.