- This is not a Trojan Horse. Madcap agrobiodiversity antics in Abruzzo, Italy. No, I don’t get it either.
- Farmers are willing to forego some extra income or yield to obtain a more stable and environmentally adaptable crop variety. They are? Someone tell the Nabobs.
- Yucca moths and yuccas; an astonishing evolutionary story.
- Bee research gets USD1.5 million for a big database. Hope it helps.
- “GM bananas could cut blindness, anaemia in East Africa.” Because nothing else will?
- Coffee, a history.
Nibbles: CGIAR “change”, Cuba, Data, Pavlovsk, Homegardens, Soil bacteria, Thai rice
- GFAR publishes list of Megaprogramme (or whatever they are called) consultations.
- Cuba’s Miscellaneous Crops Under-delegate Rolando Macias Cardenas reports on tomato paste. In other news, Cuba has a Miscellaneous Crops Under-delegate. No, wait, that’s not really news.
- While Sachs et al. moan about better agricultural data, CIAT go out and get it.
- The Pavlovsk TweetMedvedev campaign rolls on.
- “…maximum diversity can be conserved at an intermediate level of income” in Javanese bamboo-tree homegardens.
- Right, so trees “farm” bacteria. What some people will write in a press release.
- Thailand’s rice farmers trying to cope with climate change. Like they have a choice.
Nixing agrobiodiversity?
Richard Jonasse at Food First did a reasonable job a few days ago of rehearsing the old WEMA vs LEISA (let’s call it) dichotomy in agricultural development. He’s done it before, and so have we, ((And as luck would have it, here’s another example, just out.)) and I won’t go on any more about that. But I did want to say something about one of his assertions. In talking about the policies of USAID and the Gates Foundation, Jonasse says:
What these policies do not do is directly end African hunger by strengthening Africa’s farmers where they stand. This point was underscored recently when, after the Gates Foundation donated $270m (with a promise of $1Bn over the next few years) to CGIAR, Gates’ representatives nixed CGIAR’s agricultural biodiversity mega-programme, saying it was “unfocussed.” This logic represents precisely what is wrong with the Gates/USAID approach. Only an “unfocussed” low-tech approach that honors biological and cultural diversity is likely to be successful in Africa.
Well, that may well be, but the SciDevNet piece to which he links to support that “unfocussed” comment by a “Gates’ representative” doesn’t do that at all. What “Prabhu Pingali, deputy director of agricultural policy and statistics at the Gates Foundation, told the Global Conference for Agricultural Research Development (GCARD) (28—31 March)” is that the megapgrogrammes, as then constituted, “[b]ecause they are so fuzzy … are not likely to generate enthusiasm for increased funding.” All the megaprogrammes, note, not just the agricultural biodiversity one. The agrobiodiversity megaprogramme was indeed “nixed,” but I can find no comment by a Gates Foundation rep on it, either for or against. And anyway, everything still seems to be up in the air on these megaprogrammes. You can follow the CGIAR’s change process on their website and blog.
Nibble: Conservation ag, Sahelian famines, Homegarden fertility, Annals of Botany news roundup, Carrot geneflow, Cyanide in crops, Texas rice breeding
- “…conservation tillage in Europe may indeed have some negative effect on yields, [but] these effects can be expected to be limited: the overall average reduction we found was ca. 4.5%.” Well I guess it’s good to have the data.
- Today’s solution for the Niger famine is fertilizer micro-dosing. I kid you not. But you should read that first link.
- Homegardens good for soil fertility. Well I guess it’s good to have the data.
- Nigel Chaffey’s Plant Cuttings. Priceless.
- “High outcrossing and long-distance pollen dispersal suggest high frequency of transgene flow might occur from cultivated to wild carrots and that they could easily spread within and between populations.” Transgenic carrots? Well I guess it’s good to have the data.
- Kenneth Olsen interviewed on cyanide in plants. Nice enough, but you read about this stuff here first.
- “Rice breeders seek yield advantage.” Do they now.
Nibbles: Wetlands, Cucurbit phylogeny, Herbology, Malnutrition, Fungi, India, Livestock, Ug99, Madagascar, Beer
- Conserving dambos for livelihoods in southern Africa. How many CWRs are found in such wetland habitats around the world, I wonder.
- Cucumis not out of Africa.
- Exploring “the connection between traditional knowledge of herbs, edible and medicinal plants and media networked culture.” And why not.
- PBS video on malnutrition.
- Fungal exhibition at RBG Edinburgh.
- Indian Council on Agricultural Research framing guidelines for private-public partnerships in seed sector. That’ll stop the GM seed pirates.
- Conserve African humpless cattle! They’re needed for breeding.
- UG99 — and crop wild relatives — in the news. The proper news. The one people pay attention to.
- Vanilla lovers better start stocking up.
- Kenyan farmers earning money selling sorghum to brewers. What’s not to like.