- “…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind.
- More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador.
- Heritage tourism in the Virgin Islands targets old sugar cane mill.
- The “mango villages” of India.
- Pollination needs to go wild.
- Ok, so the CGIAR is going to re-organize itself into mega-programmes (look at the PDF at the bottom of the page), one of which is on “Crop germplasm conservation, enhancement and use.” Big deal? I wish I knew.
- Pssst, wanna discuss grape breeding?
- More from IIED on landraces and climate change.
- Deforestation, drought and politics in Kenya.
- Tracking eel migrations.
Nibbles: Gary Nabhan, Poppies, Gates and Worldwatch, Vavilov update, Aquaponics
- “His piped cowboy shirt and vest made my westy heart ache with thoughts of home, and the intensity of his commitment to bringing variety back to our land and our table was inspiring…” I bet it was.
- “The briefing note apparently anticipates a public-relations battle over planting poppies on the Prairies.” I bet it does.
- “You ask if the money might have been better spent supporting the dissemination of this proven knowledge within Africa.” I bet they did.
- Cassava processing in Africa. Lots of people betting on this.
- Vavilov finds enormous onions in Algeria. Who wants to bet they’re still there?
- Aquaponics catching on in Hawaii? You bet.
A new hope, or the empire strikes back?
I seem to have angered my old friend Nigel Maxted. ((Nice beard, Nigel!)) A recent piece of mine suggested that IUCN’s new book Conservation for a New Era may be evidence of a rapprochement between the biodiversity and agrobiodiversity communities. Nigel begs to differ:
I do not want to dull Luigi’s spin on the Conservation for a New Era which I guess is not meant to be specific but I just think again it draws attention to the need for joined-up conservation, that is the integration of biodiversity with agro-biodiversity conservation which I believe is far too often ignored altogether or simply given lip-service only.
After a detailed analysis of what’s been happening — or not happening — in crop wild relatives conservation, and why, Nigel ends thus:
For me in a time of climate change and increasing food insecurity THE issue is how the better integrate biodiversity with agro-biodiversity conservation, not fashionable perhaps but a real priority. The McNeely and Mainka text in my view fails to address this issue!
Do read the whole thing. What do you think? Glass half full or half empty? Or maybe totally empty? And what do we do about it?
Nibbles: Non-wood forest products, Landraces and climate change, Brewing, IRRI, Agroforestry, Borlaug, Mutant
- New NWFP Digest is out. Bamboo, bamboo and more bamboo. You all have subscribed, right?
- Your indigenous seeds will set you free. Not if you don’t have a breeding programme and decent seed companies they wont. Or not only.
- College students to evaluate hop varieties. What could possibly go wrong?
- “The IRRI is not involved in any projects on land acquisition for rice production, nor do we provide advice on land acquisition.”
- Agroforestry professor interviewed by Mongabay.
- Edwin Price vs Vandana Shiva on Borlaug on Oz radio. Let the games begin.
- Cool chimeric apple.
An African agrobiodiversity snowclone
Beware of the “X doesn’t need A, it needs B” snowclone. For example: “Africa doesn’t need a green revolution. It needs agroecology.” Because it invariably turns out that what X really needs is both A and B.