- Contribution of pollinator-mediated crops to nutrients in the human food supply. 90% of Vitamin C for a start.
- Foraging behavior of Alberes cattle in a Mediterranean forest ecosystem. It’s a semi-feral breed in NE Spain and its foraging behaviour may well decrease the risk of fires.
- Assessing the impact of the SASA/CASREN technology interventions in the sweet potato-pig production systems in Zitong County (Sichuan, China). All well and good but in this day and age one would expect some exploration of the sustainability of the interventions.
- Proposal for a Kava Quality Standardization Code. Very much needed because poor quality was probably responsible for examples of liver toxicity in the past. This is how to avoid that in the future.
- Clipping stimulates productivity but not diversity in improved and semi-natural pastures in temperate Japan. Semi-natural pastures are more diverse than improved pastures, and can be reasonably productive. So there.
- Pollen flows within and between rice and millet fields in relation to farmer variety development in The Gambia. Depends on breeding system. Likely higher within fields than between. Still no cure for cancer.
- Land, landlords and sustainable livelihoods: The impact of agrarian reform on a coconut hacienda in the Philippines. It seems to be mainly in the mind.
- Genetic divergence is not the same as phenotypic divergence. It isn’t? I’ll alert the media.
- Scope economies and technical efficiency of cocoa agroforesty systems in Ghana. Multi-crop cocoa farms are better, in multiple ways.
- Gene flow increases fitness at the warm edge of a species’ range. Outcrossing between edge populations better for living on the edge than outcrossing within edge populations, outcrossing with a center population or selfing. For a Californian annual anyway. Interesting consequences for in situ CWR conservation, in particular in context of re-introductions. Do we worry too much about “genetic pollution”?
Nibbles: Cuba, India, Kansas, Amazonia, Rice, Fonio, Rare breed
- A Cuban tells us what he thinks is wrong with Cuban agriculture.
- Rahul Goswami has two long, thoughtful articles, on how India’s next five year plan is not realistic about either food or urbanisation.
- And what’s worse in the US today, drought, or heat? Do we have to choose?
- Less than 1% of Amazonia is made of Terra Preta. Is that enough? I dunno, how about you?
- Wanna buy some rice? I wonder if African rice, heirlooms and endophytes will get a look-in.
- Better bread from minor African grains. Digitaria, that is.
- Dairy Shorthorn in trouble in the UK.
Nibbles: Food Deserts, Garlics, Communication, Bee breeding, Millets, Sweet potatoes, Visualizing herbaria, Medieval beer
- The Economist discovers food deserts. Money quote: “some Americans simply do not care to eat a balanced diet, while others, increasingly, cannot afford to”.
- William Woys Weaver on garlics, and America, and garlic in America.
- Agricultural Communication for Development conference. Sure. But 12 days long?
- Breeding a better bee. And why not?
- Kenya Agricultural research Institute to release three new high-yielding finger millets.
- Too many sweet potato seedlings. What’s a poor breeder to do?
- A visual history of California botanizing.
- Ah, to have lived at a time when a man got most of his calories from beer! No, wait…
Nibbles: FAO, Spirituality, ASARECA, Land use, Conservation agriculture, REDD, Colombian beans, Immigrant cooking, Exploding watermelons, AnGR
- Calestous Juma gives new FAO head some advice: find a role, build on what farmers do and know, engage civil society, help governments prioritize, and slash bureaucracy.
- Religion and conservation: friends of enemies?
- Eastern Africa Agricultural Productivity Project seems to be mainly about setting up regional centres of excellence in dairy, cassava, rice and wheat. Maybe ASARECA should ask for some advice from Prof. Juma?
- Land use map of the UK. Let the mash-upping begin.
- Training in sustainable conservation agriculture in India and Mexico. But how really sustainable is the whole thing if based on modern varieties? Oh, and Brazil too.
- Saving the Amazon for $33 a month.Or maybe just a buck?
- Local cooking a long way from home, Part I; from Colombia to Washington DC.
- Local cooking a long way from home, Part II; from everywhere to New York’s Lower East Side.
- Don’t worry, exploding watermelons are perfectly safe, and legal.
- FAO updates its webpage on “Implementing the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources” and documents the fact by providing a time stamp. Jeremy chuffed.
Diverse seeds for disaster relief
SciDev.net reports on a new study reinforcing the view that after a disaster that wipes out seed stocks the local, informal seed system “in the form of loans or gifts of seed from friends and relatives” is more likely to restore agrobiodiversity to the farming systems than seed relief and markets. The study looked specifically at cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) after disastrous floods in Gaza Province, Mozambique, and strengthens the more general conclusion that seeds already in the local system offer the best chance of restoration.
I can’t help wondering, however, whether disasters of this kind might not also offer an opportunity to inject extra diversity into farming systems. Not just any old diversity, as might be provided by seed relief or generous private sector suppliers, but diversity selected to perform well under predicted climatic conditions in the disaster area. A savvy genebank system, working with relief agencies, might be able to supply small amounts of pre-selected diversity that farmers would be willing to try under the circumstances. And some of that diversity might even be better than what they had before the disaster.
Just a thought.