Category: The Competition

Everything to do with our spiffy competition

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Competition news

First, a word of explanation. We took a vow of silence yesterday. No posts, no nibbles, nothing to detract from the global gloriousness of Miss Hathorn and Robert, competition winners extraordinaire. But of course we were both hot to trot this morning, so much so that we both nibbled independently. ((These things happen with a distributed system.)) That has now been fixed, with today’s monster bowl of nibbles.

Anyway, that has given us a chance to do the needful as far as our winner and runner-up are concerned, and adhere them to Association Kokopelli. Proof below. In addition, Miss Hathorn gets a packet of seeds of something called New Red Fire, a lettuce.

Of course, we could have faked the whole thing, and in a world of cut-throats and frauds we forgive your general skepticism. But we didn’t, and we hope that Miss Hathorn and Robert will return to share the joy they are getting from their prizes.

Thanks

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First winner of agricultural biodiversity competition announced

For immediate release
Rome, Italy, 22 April 2008

The No. 1 web site for agricultural biodiversity, the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog, today announced the winners of the first annual agro.agro.biodiver.se competition.

On being told the news by email Miss Hathorn, creator of My Favorite Things, a video tribute to backgarden biodiversity, wrote: “Well, (blush), I don’t know what to say. I want to thank …”

“We think this is as fitting a way to mark Earth Day as any we’ve seen,” said Luigi Guarino, beer enthusiast and co-blogger.

Miss Hathorn, working at her allotment, trumped the multi-million dollar International Rice Research Institute by 23 votes to 6.

“The people have spoken. Who am I to argue, some sort of aging African tyrant?” Robert Hijmans, IRRI researcher, asked rhetorically.

Being a cutting-edge sort of person Miss Hathorn already owned an iPod, the competition’s munificent prize. She asked that the prize money be donated to Association Kokopelli, recently fined for having the temerity to place unregistered crop varieties on the market, thus encouraging agrobiodiversity where it isn’t wanted.

“Kokopelli has no easy way to donate money,” said co-blogger and aesthete Jeremy Cherfas, “so we decided to buy a year’s membership for Miss Hathorn. There was enough left over to get membership for Robert Hijmans, runner up.”

There will almost certainly be a new competition announced soon, according to Cherfas and Guarino.

“We also have something up our sleeves for 22 May, the International Day of Biodiversity,” they said, in unison, “so stay tuned.”

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Favourite things

Hold the phone! Gasp! We have an entry to the competition!

Now we have to figure out a way to change the rules (so that we are not exclusively on blip tv) and enable voting here. Maybe by this time next week I’ll have thought of something. Meanwhile, thanks to Miss Hathorn.

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Competition Entry

Robert Hijmans writes:

I would like to submit this video to the competition:

I believe it is great example of agrobiodiversity at work; and why we have genebanks, screening, and (molecular) breeding programs.

The video shows IR64, a widespread rice cultivar, and IR64-sub1 growing side by side on a field at IRRI that experiences a (simulated) flash flood. IR64 is badly affected, IR64-sub1 comes out much better.

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