- Cutting down forests worsened ancient Mayan droughts.
- And (among other things) did for the Maya.
- And despite the Mayan end of the world being near, the French are revitalising agroforestry.
- The Financial Times wrote about One Acre Fund’s work to reduce agrobiodiversity in Kenya, then put it behind a paywall (for me). So One Acre Fund sprung it.
- School gardens continue to flourish in some places.
ICRISAT’s work on crop wild relatives
Dr Nalini Mallikarjuna with some amphidiploid peanuts: “Give me time and I’ll give you hybrids.”
Agro-business flourishes in Mali
“By selling these seeds in small packets at local markets as well as in her shops, these are more accessible and affordable for resource-poor women farmers.”
One picture is worth a thousand words, they say. The one up there is the last in a series of images on The Guardian’s Global Development blog.
Mali’s first woman seed entrepreneur Maïmouna Coulibaly has launched an agribusiness which brings tasty and nutritious seed varieties on to the market. ‘When the seeds are good, so are the yields. But people need to like the taste to buy it at the market. When we do food tastings we find out what works,’ she says
The whole slideshow promotes the new and improved varieties that Maïmouna Coulibaly is selling because they are so much better than local varieties. But how about that product placement? Wonder what that’s worth?
Nibbles: Aquatic mapping, Biofortified millet, Indian agriculture, African agriculture, Restoration, Online flora, Farm Bill, Right to Food, Elk farming, Forestry fellowship, Breadfruit, Foods and climate change
- OBIS maps marine organisms. But does it include this data from China?
- Private sector delivers biofortified millet. But will it make it to the wiki for Indian agriculture?
- New paper by APRODEV and PELUM on why CAADP should follow IAASTD. Glossary not included. And more on African agriculture from Gates. Not like this, though.
- Millennium Seed Bank in ecosystem restoration. And a study on ecosystems that are actually going to require less restoration than others.
- Monsanto supports online world flora. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, in the public sector…
- Olivier de Schutter’s recent Right to Food shpiel for IFPRI. LOTS of words. I guess you had to be there.
- Small-scale elk farming primer. Not as crazy as it sounds, but pretty crazy.
- And if you’re a young scientist, from sub-Saharan Africa, and interested in forest genetic resources, well, here’s a fine forestry fellowship opportunity.
- The Bounty Redux. The whole bringing-breadfruit-to-the Caribbean thing seems to be going more smoothly this time.
- Huffington slideshow on the world’s endangered foods.
Shea butter producers go digital
Shea producers in Leo, Burkina Faso go Digital, a set by IICD on Flickr.