- Anastasia reports on the Biofortification conference: 60-day cowpeas
- Big blog post on even bigger conference on molecular tools for improving vegetatively-propagated crops: banana, plantain and cassava.
- Rice technologists! You need to read this blog post by Prabhu Pingali.
- UK’s Royal Horticultural Society report says school gardens are “vital”.
Nibbles: Coffee rust, PECS, Agrofuels, Israel, Mayan farming, Cannabis breeding, Drought resistance
- Resistance to coffee rust found in India, though not clear where. Now for the hard part …
- Arguments for Payments for Ecosystem Services. Matt points to a conference in 2013, but where are the actual payments?
- “Rather than decrying development in India and China we should be strenuously objecting to agrofuels.” So lets distinguish agrofuels from biofuels.
- Today’s new genebank is in Israel. Bet there are some crop wild relatives in there.
- Those Mayans were boffo agricultural engineers.
- “Alcohol-free” cannabis. I don’t understand any of this.
- A gene associated with flowering time has alleles associated with a rainfall gradient. h/t Jacob. Cool.
Nibbles: Nagoya, Viet Nam, Mexico, Haiti
- The UK’s take on Nagoya? “In the end it was a great success.” Really, it was.
- ILRI outlines project to protect local livestock breeds in Viet Nam.
- Another day, another genebank (in another language).
- Haiti told to get growing. “I’ve worked in some severely affected countries, including Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Mali, but I have never seen such a suppressed agricultural system as we saw in Haiti.” Louise Sperling speaks truth to power.
Yes, Nagoya backs ITPGRFA, kinda sorta
The Q&A on the Nagoya Protocol with UNEP expert Balakrishna Pisupati has only elicited three questions so far, but at least Dr Pisupati seems to agree with Bioversity’s Michael Halewood on what the Protocol means for the ITPGRFA:
This agreement is to be read in support of the ITPGRFA. Parties to the CBD had long discussions on the relationship between this Protocol and the ITPGRFA and came to the conclusion that it will not run counter to the objectives or scope of the ITPGRFA and will be complimenting the provisions under the ITPGRFA.
Phew!
Views of Nagoya
Whether or not crop wild relatives were mentioned, Nagoya was good for plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, at least according to Bioversity’s Michael Halewood.
Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing from Bioversity International on Vimeo.
Meanwhile, George Monbiot is not sure Nagoya happened at all.