- Old California olives shared. More details later, I hope.
- Livestock in the balance, an FAO report. Did we already gnaw on this?
- Assessing urban biodiversity. Any veg with that?
- How to share biodiversity data. Any informatics with that?
- Fromgirls??? Cheesecake urges surrender-monkeys to eat more cheese.
- Biocultural Diversity Conservation, a new book from earthscan. We’ll let you know about ag when we’ve seen it.
- Challenges for Tanzanian seed sector. (No, not that blasted sorghum.)
Welcome, Carnival goers
If you’ve just arrived here from Scientia Pro Publica, welcome. We’re never quite sure where we fit in the overall “science” matrix. Agronomy is science, sure, and so is plant breeding, mostly, and GMOs well, obviously. But stuff like making better use of agrobiodiversity often sits uncomfortably with people who want simple solutions to problems that they see as simple too. Not enough water? Irrigate! Saline soil? Breed saline tolerance! Missing vitamin A? Engineer it into a staple!
So it was interesting to find Eric Michael Johnson’s analysis of policy options for Haiti at the latest Scientia Pro Publica. The main thrust seems to be that rewarding Haitian farmers for good behaviour rather than punishing them for bad is more likely to have the beneficial impacts sought as Haiti struggles back from disaster. Trouble is, the policy analysts seems to think that using high-tech seeds and more fertilizer are the best good behaviours to incentivize; there are other options, you know. And as Johnson points out, the government of Haiti is not allowed to subsidize its farmers, not even for seeds and fertilizer. This is nuts. So is Mauka to Maui’s wonderful story of The ant and the toad, in a good way. ((Congratulations too on being nominated for a Research Blogging Award in three whole categories.))
Mexico builds a genebank
INIFAP has photos of progress in building Mexico’s new National Genetic Resources Centre. It’s about a third finished, and needs to be ready in time for this year’s celebrations of the bicentenary of Mexican independence. Total cost is about US$ 30 million, if I interpret the figure in the text correctly. I hope the recurrent costs necessary to keep the place running once it’s built will also be forthcoming with similar generosity.
Nibbles: Community genebank, Traditional medicine, Agarwood, Radish introgression, Kentucky bluegrass, Frison, Vavilov, Pollinators, Collecting strategy
- Bamboo microscope used to document rice varieties at Indian village genebank. Want one.
- And more documentation and conservation of traditional knowledge in India: this time it’s medicines.
- Nigel Chaffey’s latest botanical buffet table at the Annals of Botany has stuff on nomenclature and genomes. Always worth following.
- Latest on saving agarwood. And more. Thanks to twittering by @AsiaForestry.
- Biofortified blogs research on geneflow between crops and their wild relatives.
- Kentucky bluegrass pix. Botany Photo of the Day is also worth following. You guys all use Google Reader, right?
- “Any serious discussion of biodiversity conservation must include the diversity of crops and livestock…” Right on.
- Vavilov hits Abyssinia. Another one for Reader.
- Pollinator trends in Europe and the world. It ain’t good.
- Your botanic gardens needs at least 15 individuals of that palm.
Where will all those vegetable seeds come from?
I haven’t seen official figures on production or acreage — I’m not even sure if they exist — but if internet buzz and celebrity hype is anything to go by we’ve clearly been going through a revolution in vegetable gardening during the past couple of years. Well, would you believe a resurgence of interest? Schools are certainly interested. Michelle Obama is, famously, interested. The next step will no doubt be the digging of tilapia ponds on the White House lawn.
Just today there were pieces on this from the US and the UK. But what I would really be interested to know is to what extent all these “new” gardeners, including the First Lady, are using heirloom seeds. Is there demand for them? And if so, is it being met by supply?
The Royal Horticultural Society has put out a call for heirloom vegetable seeds in Wales. Is it because it fears for their continued existence, or because enough seed is not available to meet sky-rocketing requests?
Seeds discovered through the scheme will be redistributed through local seed-swaps and also through the Heritage Seed Library run by Garden Organic in Coventry.
Given the recent news about the “official” national vegetables genebank in the UK, one does have to be thankful for things like the Heritage Seed Library, and its American cousin Native Seed Search. Maybe Michelle can be persuaded to Adopt-a-Crop.