- Vandana Shiva on Indian farmer suicides.
- Make mine a tejate.
Brussels hearts vultures
No sooner do we nibble a scientific paper describing how traditional transhumance supports ecosystems, and in particular vulture populations, than the EU parliament passes legislation allowing farmers to leave carcasses on their land. It’s great to be heard in Brussels!
Nibbes: Nettles, Rivers, Rare species, Library, Afghanistan protected area, Nordic-Baltic-Russian collaboration, Photos, Disease
- George Orwell scythes nettles, then seeks uses.
- World’s rivers in trouble. Also other wetlands the world over. CWRs to be affected, along with everything else?
- Let’s not get too hung up about rarity.
- UNESCO launches World Digital Library. Gotta be some agrobiodiversity in there somewhere, surely. Yes indeedy.
- Afghanistan’s first national park has some livestock wild relatives!
- Circum-Baltic collaboration on genetic resources conservation.
- Mongabay.com publishes lots of cool pictures of biodiversity to celebrate Earth Day yesterday. So does The Big Picture, even some vaguely farming ones. And Adam Forbes has just loaded a bunch of photos too. Luigi comments: Why didn’t we do the same for agrobiodiversity?
- Tuberculosis and domestication. Not.
“Food prices: What goes up must come down”
Oh yeah? I’ve taken our headline directly from Mariann Fischer Boel in full rhetorical flight.
When the price on wheat went up last year, I wondered quite publicly why bread prices skyrocketed when the share of wheat in the cost of producing bread was relatively low. Back then, I was told by industry that the share of agricultural raw material was in fact much higher and that rising energy prices also had an impact. Now with wheat and energy prices having dropped dramatically during the last year, I think it is legitimate to wonder again and ask: why aren’t bread prices following suit?
Good question? Or naive political drivel? You be the judge.
Mexico City protects maize landraces
In an almighty panic about GM maize, the government of Mexico City has sprung energetically into action. The result is a “Declaration of Protection of the Maize Breeds of the Mexico Altiplano.” There are said to be “more than 60” maize landraces in the part of the Altiplano that falls within the confines of the Distrito Federal, which I assume is the area over which the Declaration will be applicable.
The Declaration includes provision for:
- establishing a research programme to improve local maize breeds
- supporting farmers who sow only native seeds
- promoting the use of organic fertilizer and pesticides
- banning of the purchase and distribution of transgenic maize in Mexico City
- establishing a germplasm bank for the Altiplano’s maize seeds
I have a few questions about all this, but I’ll just pose one here. Has anyone asked the CIMMYT genebank, just outside Mexico City, whether by any chance it already has the Altiplano’s maize landraces?