- Celebrating the Irish Seed Savers Association celebrations. We had wanted to be there…
- CAS-IP on how to “break” the Plumpy’nut patent.
- Cattle wild relative seen for first time in 10 years. Well, by scientists anyway.
- “Initiatives that merely codify cultural products without taking the social-organizational context into account risk becoming little more than ‘museums of production.'” Ouch.
- Millet domestication pushed back in time.
- Antioxidant properties of traditional wild Iberian leafy greens. Yes, I know, this medicalizes nutrition, but I thought it was interesting that these wild species are still used.
- “…a trait of the diploid species, which apparently looks undesirable, might in fact be highly valuable for the improvement of amphidiploids…”
- “Food? We don’t need no stinkin’ food,” say UN negotiators.
- UK ambassador’s observations on agriculture in Ukraine. Love the contrast between 100 ha fields of sunflowers and the table groaning under home-grown fruit and vegetables.
- In other news, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine has a blog. And so do a number of others. Sorely tempted to subscribe to their RSS.
Protecting the potato one variety at the time
FreshInfo has just published a little piece saying that a foundation has been set up to save potato varieties in perpetuity. Alas, the announcement is behind a registration wall, but it is really too important to keep hidden like that, so I’m reproducing it in full below. There is no link on the article, and nothing on the CIP website or Facebook page. Very strange. You heard it here first.
A new international foundation is being set up to protect potato varieties in perpetuity and is appealing for individuals and companies to show their support and become Heroes for Life.
The Roots for Life Foundation has been several years in the making and launches officially on 1 October. It is the brainchild of chairman and Lincolnshire potato grower Jim Godfrey, working with Dr Pamela K Anderson who heads up the International Potato Centre (known internationally as CIP) in Peru, Canadian grower Peter van der Zaag and Edinburgh bio-technology entrepreneur Simon Best.
CIP holds an in-trust collection of more than 4,000 native potato varieties in its gene bank and Roots for Life hopes to mark this year’s International Year of Biodiversity with its fundraising campaign to protect them.
Godfrey said: “In the genetic biodiversity of these native potatoes lie the answers to food security in a world where climate change, water and land shortages, and an energy crisis threaten global food security. The CIP gene bank is a trust fund for our survival.”
Roots for Life is appealing for Heroes for Life to each donate $5,000 and protect one of the varieties. This will raise some $21 million – less than the amount US consumers spend on French fries each day.
The website will go live on 1 October and the foundation hopes to announce all the heroes in Svalbard, Norway, home of the Global Seed Vault.
“A Wall of Heroes will be built at the gene bank in Lima bearing the names of the individuals, groups and institutions who have stepped up to this challenge for the benefit of future generations,” said Godfrey.
Nibbles: European plant conservation, Homegardens, Anthropogenic vegetation, Soil Association, Wheat and heat, Coconut meet, Pavlovsk beatdown, Plant species numbers, Vegetation and climate change, Genebank software
- How is Europe doing at saving its threatened plants? Paper and website available. How many crop wild relatives are threatened in Europe? I think it should be possible to work it out…
- Bioversity colleagues summarize their work on homegardens.
- Introduced plants can be useful too!
- Soil Association continues to quibble about need to double food supply.
- ICARDA looks for heat-beating wheat.
- “Coconut Biodiversity for Prosperity” meet coming up soon in Kerala. Local press excited.
- Jeremy sets the world straight on Pavlovsk.
- Kew et al. set the world straight on how many plants there are in the world. Jury still out on the number of crop wild relatives.
- Vulnerability of vegetation to climate change varies around the world. Well there’s a thing now. Nice maps.
- If you’re running a livestock cryobank I’ve got the software for you.
Nibbles: Tokyo, Biofuels, Genebank conference, Forestry, Pinus, Hunger, Moringa
- Urban agriculture in Tokyo makes no financial sense. So what?
- Growing biofuels in Andhra Pradesh may make financial sense. Sow what?
- EUCARPIA conference. To Serve and Conserve: genebanks exploring ways to improve service to PGR users and effectiveness of PGR conservation. April 2011.
- Recovering Ethiopia’s forests.
- The wrong kind of pine-nut diversity.
- “We can halve hunger.” IFPRI Director General says how.
- Optimising use of Moringa to purify water.
A reprieve for the cerrado
Stung into action by our forceful prose and righteous indignation, the Brazilian government has decided to save what’s left of the cerrado.