Threats

June 3, 2009June 3, 2009

The youthing of Japanese agriculture

I know I nibbled it, but the recent discussion on Global Voices about how Japanese agriculture is changing really deserves a bit more attention. I was particularly struck by what may just be the green shoots of burgeoning interest in agriculture among the young. There’s a fair way to go, of course.

In the next 10 years, the majority of farmers in Japan will be 70 or older according to an Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry survey, mainly because the younger generation doesn’t want to take over the family business, many young farmers said.

But countering that is the trend for celebrities to get involved in farming. Plus there’s the pilot agriculture-experience program. And increasing use of the internet in farming, including blogging.

Japanese agriculture may just get the shot in the arm it needs after all.

June 2, 2009June 2, 2009

Nibble: Coconut, Punjab, Oak barrels, Schools, Podcasts, Origins squared, Apples, Fruit book

Coconut beetle attack in Cambodia.
Indian Green Revolutionary goes organic.
Forests leave fingerprint in wine.
School gardening in Ghana, farmer field school for women and children in Panama.
WWF launches podcast series “The Wild Things.” Bioversity to counter with “The Cultivated Things.”
Oldest pottery found in Chinese cave with oldest rice.
The transition to agriculture “was entered into slowly and reluctantly.” Evidence from the Netherlands, of all places.
Got an apple orchard? Wanna be a star?
Hunting down The Fruit Hunters.

June 2, 2009June 1, 2009

Aurochs alive and well

Well, not quite. But some of their DNA is. A paper just out in PLoS ONE has found two mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (the ones labelled R and P in the diagram below) which apparently got into Italian local breeds from “European aurochsen [haplogroup E] as the result of sporadic interbreeding events with domestic herds grazing in the wild.” Some of these breeds are rare and marginalized, though, so even the last remnants of the aurochs might be in danger.

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June 1, 2009

“Global human sensor net” to be cast for biodiversity

Another attempt to harness the “wisdom of crowds” is in the offing. The eBiosphere informatics challenge is asking people around the world to send in observations of “species of interest.” That basically means mainly invasives and threatened species, for now. You can contribute photographs to Flickr or use Twitter or send an email. You don’t have to be a taxonomist: you’re asked to do your best on the identification, and they’ll bring experts in for confirmation. All the observations coming in will be integrated it with other scientific knowledge (e.g. taxonomy, maps, conservation status) on the species.

Now, if you’re a regular reader you’ll know this kind of approach is one we’ve occasionally contemplated here for crop wild relatives, landraces and other agrobiodiversity, in particular to monitor threats and erosion. So I’ll be watching closely.

June 1, 2009June 10, 2009

Nibbles: CGRFA, Livestock atlas, ITPGRFA, Bighorn, Japan, Wild Europe, Svalbard

The Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture re-launches its website. And also the Global Livestock Production and Health Atlas (GLiPHA). Must be an FAO thing.
“We are grateful to the governments who have made voluntary contributions to make this possible,” said Dr Shakeel Bhatti, Secretary of the Treaty’s Governing Body.
Bighorn sheep at risk from climate change, computer says.
The changing face of Japanese agriculture.
“We are blurring natural boundaries: forests are no longer forests, meadows are no longer meadows. We have lost sight of eternity and infinity and are destroying nature for future generations.”
Pope name-checks Svalbard Global Seed Vault.