- IFPRI says exchange of genetic resources a “best bet” for large-scale research investment. Ok, but why just research it? Why not just do it?
- Too hot to handle.
- World Food Garden. Via.
- Another commensal fingerprinted.
Nibbles: Markets, Edible schoolyard
Politics of Food Blogged
Having tried my hand at the conference-reporting lark, I have enormous respect for people like Robert Hijmans, who did us proud with his series on Harlan II, and, now, Elanor over at The Ethicurean. She (?) has been at a conference on the Politics of Food held at North Carolina State University. From what looks like a groaning table of dishes, Elanor picked on a panel on the Food Crisis, and manages to be impressed, to gush, and to be self-aware all at the same time. To whit:
It was one “a-ha†moment after another. Even the ag economist’s graphs gave me a rush. (Please don’t tell anyone that I said that, though — it’s embarrassing.)
As is customary here, I’m not going to steal Elanor’s thunder by summarizing what she has to say. Just that I found the report exciting and stimulating, and the policy shifts she mentioned made an awful lot of sense to me too. Not to mention some of the figures about investment in agriculture and growth in GDP; those are definitely going to come in handy, and soon.
Money quote:
News coverage of the food crisis has focused on the global poor as consumers whose lives are thrown out of whack by rising prices. The obvious solution, as they frame it, is to do anything necessary to make food prices low again. But in many cases, the poor are actually farmers or workers in the ag supply chain — or they used to be. If they were farmers still, they’d be making pretty good money right now. Ugarte was asking a profound question: Is the food crisis really about prices? Or is it, at its core, about policy and ownership?
Answers on a postcard, please.
Nibbles: Hops, Green Revolution, Leeks, Hemp, Ethical eating, Cuba, Farmers’ markets
- Brewers vertically integrate themselves. Like Snoopy Miller.
- They met, we ate.
- Roman garden recreated in Wales, complete with leeks.
- “There are around 45,000 different uses for hemp.”
- Drawing the ecotarian line.
- Cuban urban agriculture sprouts anew after Ike.
- List of farmers markets in the US. Luigi asks: where’s the GoogleMaps mashup?
French man saves seeds in India
I found this in a post at the Permaculture Research Institute, USA. The video is rather good, I reckon, although there were a couple of parts where I disagreed with the subtitling. More worrying, I think, is the sub-text. Do the Indians need a foreigner to teach them to save seeds? To get them access to traditional varieties from all over, that they can then trial in their own systems. Why no mention of the fact that what Stephan Fayon is doing in India, he could not do legally in France? Kokopelli India is an offshoot of Kokopelli Seed Foundation, which is a US vehicle to support the aims of Association Kokopelli in France. Amazingly, Association Kokopelli has had nothing new to say about its euros 35,000 fine for “unfair trading” since the fine was levied. It’s all very odd.