Category: Tourism

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The road to Pusa Campus

For years I’ve been seeing it in writing: NBPGR, Pusa Campus, New Delhi. But the picture of it I had in my mind turned out to be quite different to the reality. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s Pusa Campus comprises offices, labs and staff housing, yes, but also a huge area of agricultural fields, and right in the middle of New Delhi: a rural oasis in the teeming city (clicking on the map below will take you to Google Maps).

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It all started in 1934, when the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute, established in 1905 at Pusa in Bihar, was moved to Delhi following an earthquake. Hence Pusa Campus. The institute of course became the Indian Agricultural Research Institute on independence, just like its parent body, the Imperial Council of Agricultural Research, became the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). But many of the buildings are still used. Such as the library.
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Obligatory photos of agricultural biodiversity in Thai floating market go online to stifled yawns

I’m very ignorant about SE Asia, so I assumed that the famous (or infamous) “floating market of Bangkok” would be in Bangkok, rather than over 100km away. I also didn’t really expect it to be quite the tourist trap it is. Oh well. But they do sell a remarkable variety of fruits, vegetables and other assorted agrobiodiversity there. Go to my Flickr page and leave as many identifications as you can.

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“Barley-wheat” explained

There’s a National Agricultural Science Museum on ICAR’s the Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s Pusa Campus ((In a separate post I’ll explain why it’s called the Pusa Campus.)) and I spent an enjoyable hour or so wandering around it during my recent visit to Delhi. One floor takes the visitor on a whirlwind tour of agriculture on the subcontinent from the Neolithic to the Green Revolution. Then you go down some stairs for exhibits on the current state of Indian agriculture. The displays and eye-catching, informative and well-arranged. My only complaint would be about the lack of explicit references to the importance of agrobiodiversity, its conservation and use, for sustainable agriculture, apart from a poster on the Green Revolution. But then the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources has its own museum.

Taking photographs was not allowed, so I can’t show you the wonderful diorama of a Mughal garden, and other great exhibits. I do hope the museum goes online sometime. Best I can do at the moment is this scan of the brochure that is handed out as you leave (click to enlarge).
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Nibbles: Traditional knowledge, Opium poppy, Fish, Bees, Earthworms, Wild horses, Camel, Fearl rabbits, Guinea savannah, Kava

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Bactrian camel a little less on the edge

Today’s BBC story about the unexpected birth of a Bactrian camel calf at Knowsley Safari Park in the UK reminded me how little I know about camels — although my performance on the camel question on the recent domestication quiz should have warned me. In particular, I didn’t know that there are wild Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus) in NW China and Mongolia, though admittedly they are down to about a thousand and endangered. It’s unclear from the Knowsley website whether the Bactrian camel birth is part of a captive breeding and re-introduction programme, but there are such programmes there for other species:

Our Pere David’s deer herd is one of the largest in the UK. These deer were classified as extinct in the wild until the mid 1980’s when a group of 39 deer went back to China as part of a project organised by the Zoological Society of London. Four of our deer formed part of this group returned to the 1,000 hectare Dafeng reserve. Now classified as critically endangered, they are protected from hunting on the reserve and the captive breeding herds such as ours at Knowsley are still very important to ensure the future of these deer.