Being very Web 2.0-savvy, our friends at the Crop Genebank Knowledge Base project have set up a YouTube channel. So now you can watch a couple of nice little videos on why genebanks are so important. And reflect on what really feeds people. Here’s a clue: it’s not genetic erosion numbers.
Nairobi’s International Day of Biodiversity in pictures
Taz, who describes himself on his blog as a Kenyan science writer, was at the National Museums of Kenya on the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, and he kindly left a comment to that effect on our short post on that subject. His own description of the event includes some great photos. Any other reports, from Nairobi and elsewhere?
LATER: Susan MacMillan of ILRI also has some photos from the Nairobi celebrations on her Facebook page.
Nibbles: Endangered African breeds, Rice and bananas, AGRA, Adaptation, Old Masters
- ILRI continues its attempt to take over the internet.
- Dorian Fuller summarizes rice in Madagascar in a paragraph. Good trick. And for his next one he rounds up the latest on bananas. The guy’s a machine.
- No adaptation without agrobiodiversity, rapt masses told. And here, like manna from heaven, is an example. Well, sort of.
- Bruegel on agriculture. With picture goodness.
Nibbles: Land lease, Maasai flexibility, Small farms, Coffee, coffee, coffee, Climate change, Sahelian trees, Food as drugs, Field genebanks, Chinese medicinals, Bolivian NTFP, Invasives
- Dinka men despise manual labour, hence “southern Sudan might soon be on the block for having a lot of its potential farm land leased to, and worked by, foreigners”.
- Maasai, on the other hand, “diversifying into cropping, by keeping fewer and faster growing animals and … taking on paying jobs”. Takes all sorts.
- What is a small farm? Depends.
- Coffee contains insecticides. Who knew?
- Global Coffee Quality Research Initiative (GCQRI) launched.
- Central America’s coffee lands to shrink under climate change, Reuters reports. Enough! I’ve got the shakes.
- Africa, meanwhile, needs technological innovations to cope.
- Domesticating baobab. You know it makes sense.
- Take two snacks in the morning and call me if you don’t feel any better.
- Climate change will affect Portuguese ex situ plant conservation sites too.
- “How best can communities conserve their medicinal plants?” A case study from China.
- Bolivia could make more of its Araceae and Bromeliaceae. Couldn’t we all?
- Are protected areas in Africa harbouring crop wild relatives? Just kidding: it’s invasives IUCN is talking about.
Nibbles: Potato chemistry, Millennium Seed Bank, Sacred sites, Japanese festivals
- Measuring micronutrients and stuff in potatoes.
- Kew wants you to adopt a seed, save a species. Easy as that.
- Maybe religion can do some good in the world after all? Allow me to be skeptical.
- Wait, can I change my mind? The wonderfulness that is Japanese penis festivals. Well, they mainly take place in the spring. Agrobiodiversity mainly grows in the spring. There is a connection, surely.