- “Food is the most cost-effective intervention.”
- Peru promotes potatoes.
- The Importance of Biodiversity to Medicine. Anyone got access? Any mention of nutrition?
- EU Says bees should rest. Problem solved.
- Extreme beer. All problems solved.
- Eat local? I don’t think so.
- Itchy Italian gourmands gutted over climate change-caused truffle troubles.
- Mulberry trees pay the price for immodesty.
- While fig trees planted by Jesuits survive. It’s a funny old world. Fruit tree trifecta in play.
- And it comes in! Today’s saving-the-frigging-English-apple story comes to you from The Guardian. Enough already, the English apple is going to be fine.
Book of the agrobiodiversity of Guatemala published
My good friend Cesar Azurdia has alerted me to the publication of the book Guatemala y su Biodiversidad. Chapter 9 focuses on agricultural biodiversity. There’s a lot of great stuff on homegardens, crop wild relatives, effects of climate change etc., all subjects very dear to our heart here.
Plan of action against UG99
Despite reassuring words from the Indian Minister of Agriculture at the start of the meeting 1, FAO announced that delegates of the 31 countries represented at the “International Conference on Wheat Stem Rust Ug99 – A Threat to Food Security” in New Delhi have pledged to support prevention and control of UG99. They agreed:
- to share surveillance information;
- that a global early warning system should be immediately established;
- that plant breeding research should be intensified; and
- that rust resistant wheat varieties should be distributed to farmers.
Davis’ Genetic Resources Conservation Program closes down
Cuts in California state funding have led to the closure of the Genetic Resources Conservation Program at UC Davis. This seems terribly short-sighted of Gov. Schwarzenneger, who is being talked about as a possible Secretary of Energy under Pres. Obama.
Nibbles: Bees, Millennium Villages, Oaks, Wolf, CWR
- “Francis Ratnieks, the UK’s only professor of apiculture, is undertaking pioneering research based on a breed of worker bee genetically programmed to keep hives clean.”
- Scaling up the Millennium Villages. Still no news on what it all means for agrobiodiversity.
- Good news for New England acorn lovers. Including the artisanal pork industry?
- The Ethiopian wolf is in trouble.
- The Crop Wild Relatives Discussion Group reaches 250 member, 200 messages. Well done.