Smart phones are being used to map invasive plants. Why not crop wild relatives? Or other agrobiodiversity for that matter.
Nibbles: Fisheries, Mangroves, European bison, Dormouse, Eating & drinking heirlooms, Apios, Kombucha, Organic and health
- Donwload a guide to sustainable sushi.
- It was World Mangrove Day last Sunday. Who knew.
- Poland/Belarus’s Bialowieza Primeval Forest and its bison threatened by climate change, politics.
- Endangered dormouse found crossing highway, but is it the edible sort beloved of the Romans?
- “Endangered heritage breeds have one saving grace: They’re generally tasty.” Even in cocktails.
- Radix gets to grips with Apios americana. Good luck!
- Did someone say fermentation?
- Did someone say single-issue bores?
Nibbles: Crops for the Future, Fertile Crescent, Canadian First Nation
- A common collection of publications on neglected crops.
- Crescent, maybe, but fertile, not so much.
- “The beaches now are empty of herring roe, its harvest a lost art.”
“The rain and wind would come”
For centuries, the Kamayurá planted their summer crops when a certain star appeared on the horizon. “When it appeared, everyone celebrated because it was the sign to start planting cassava since the rain and wind would come,” Chief Kotok recalled. But starting seven or eight seasons ago, the star’s appearance was no longer followed by rain, an ominous divergence, forcing the tribe to adjust its schedule.
It has been an ever-shifting game of trial and error since. Last year, families had to plant their cassava four times — it died in September, October and November because there was not enough moisture in the ground. It was not until December that the planting took. The corn also failed, said Mapulu, the chief’s sister. “It sprouted and withered away,” she said.
That’s from a NY Times article from the Xingu National Park in Brazil. And it’s not just the Kamayurá’s cassava that is being affected.
Deforestation and, some scientists contend, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks in this area and imperiling the Kamayurá’s very existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the world with little money or capacity to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.
That eerily echoes the experience of the Tla’Amin people, a Canadian First Nation. But that’s another story. Back to cassava. Coincidentally, our friend and colleague Andy Jarvis has just shared a presentation which looks at the effect of climate change on cassava in Latin America.
Perhaps Andy will tell us whether the changes Chief Kotok described are in line with what his models are telling him.
High water, low water
Thanks to the NY Times’ photography blog Lens, two great multimedia presentations for you, both on a watery theme, but with some agrobiodiversity thrown in. From Panos, a moving video of the story of how Tuvaluans are trying — and, alas, mainly failing — to cope with climate change. It’s getting harder and harder to maintain the way of life, including the taro and pulaka gardens, in the face of rising water levels. But the alternative, life in New Zealand, is not appealing to everyone. And from the other side of the world, illustrating the opposite problem, a photoessay on Iraq’s Marsh Arabs, who live by fishing, growing a few crops, and raising buffaloes. But “farmers say lowered water levels and pollution has made it difficult to keep the buffalo healthy.”